THUNDER BAY – Saving the relationship between the Toronto Transit Commission and Bombardier is crucial to preserving local jobs, says the union president representing workers at the city’s plant.
Unifor Local 1075 president Dominic Pasqualino acknowledged the company’s ability to only deliver 10 operable streetcars out of the 67 contracted by the end of 2015 is disappointing but said the quality of the locally built cars is up to standard.
At a Wednesday meeting, Toronto’s transit authority is expected to discuss potential legal action against the company, as well as the potential of banning Bombardier from bidding on future contracts as a result of the difficulty in fulfilling the 204-car order.
“Our number one customer is Toronto and it’s important for us to make sure they’re happy. Quite frankly, if Toronto was to bar us from bidding it would be devastating for us,” Pasqualino said on Monday.
“This has never happened before with any contracts I can ever remember in 29 years I’ve worked here. Certainly we’ll do our best to solve these issues.”
In addition to the streetcars, workers at the city plant also produce subway cars for the TTC and rail cars for GO Transit.
Pasqualino is optimistic the company is beginning to turn the corner and get back on track with their production targets for the streetcars.
More workers were hired throughout the summer with extra shifts added to increase manpower. There have also been significant issues with the quality of components coming from Mexico, which has caused headaches but those appear to be in the process of being resolved.
“Now we’re finding solutions for that and we’re happy to see the cars are coming out and are coming out with an exceptional build quality. Their reliability far surpasses the expectations of the customer,” Pasqualino said.
“Now our goal is to get them up to a rate that will satisfy the customer.”
He added the problems with the parts are better than they had been previously.
Even though the TTC has threatened to exclude Bombardier from future projects, finding another eligible company might not be that simple. Provincial laws mandate the cars to be built with minimum 25 per cent Canadian content.
Pasqualino said eliminating or reducing that requirement is not beneficial. Instead, he believes the law should be moved in the other direction which would force more of the parts for the cars to be built and assembled in Canada.
“We are very good at what we do in this plant, there’s no doubt about it,” he said. “We’re probably one of the most experienced rail car manufacturers in North America. We have the experienced people here, we just need the opportunity to do our job.”
