Elevator repair workers have walked off the job.
About 16 members of the International Union of Elevator Constructors spent Friday morning picketing outside the amalgamated court house in Thunder Bay’s south side, vowing to stay off the job until the companies they work for drop threatened pay cuts at the bargaining table.
Graham Renner, shop steward of IUEC local 102, said the proposed decreases simply aren’t fair.
“We don’t have a contract right now. We are negotiating with our companies and they wanted basically to lower our wages, eliminate seniority, contract lots of our work out to do pre-fab elevators,” Renner said.
While they’re on strike, union members won’t be responding to emergency calls in the city.
“There’s no elevator work going on in the city right now. Elevators aren’t being maintained, so safety is a bit of an issue with the elevators,” he said.
“There are some supervisors in town taking care of people who get stuck in elevators. Besides that, the firefighters will be letting people out if they do get stuck.”
Province-wide, about 1,400 IUEC workers are off the job.
Officials with Infrastructure Ontario were not certain how the strike would affect the project, but remain optimistic the issues will be resolved soon .
“It is too early to speculate on the strike’s impact at this time,” states Jennifer Asals, a spokeswoman for Infrastructure Ontario, in an email to Thunder Bay Television Friday.
“We are hopeful that this matter will be resolved soon and that there will not be any consequential impact to the schedule for the project.”
