THUNDER BAY -- The Thunder Bay Bombardier plant has been hiring at least a dozen new employees every week to help speed up their streetcar production.
This comes after Bombardier fell behind on its delivery orders to the Toronto Transit Commission. The CEO and the Chair of the TTC were in Thunder Bay last month meeting with Bombardier officials and touring the plant. Under their contract, Bombardier had committed to produce 200 streetcars by 2019 but only six are currently in service in Toronto.
Unifor Local 1075 president Dominic Pasqualino says with the new hires the plant is working very hard to deliver on its promise of pushing out one car every five days. But he says at the moment they are not there yet.
Last week the company parted ways with Vice President of Operations Aaron Rivers. Pasqualino says there were no tears shed by his members as they believe Rivers was one of the main factors on why the workers were on strike for so long last summer, which further delayed the streetcar order.
