The Toronto Transit Commission board and TTC employees will vote on a tentative agreement this week.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
The Toronto Transit Commission has reached a tentative deal with its union, sources say, reducing the chances of the transit agency going to arbitration for the second straight time.
Details will not be released unless the members of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113 approve the agreement in a vote expected later this week. It also will be discussed and put to a ratification vote by the TTC board at a special meeting on Wednesday.
The deal comes after talks were extended more than a month past the deadline, suggesting that both sides were eager to avoid a breakdown in negotiations. With the TTC now declared an essential service, and their workers barred from striking, a failure of talks would have led to arbitration.
In 2012, the union and transit agency went to arbitration, resulting in 6 per cent raises for the union's members over a three-year period. Those raises were retroactive to April of 2011. In that round, the TTC had sought a four-year wage freeze while the union had been pushing for 8.75 per cent over three years.
The TTC has about 10,000 employees who are represented by the ATU local. The transit agency was declared an essential service by the province in March of 2011, a victory for newly elected Mayor Rob Ford, who had campaigned on taking away the TTC's right to strike.
Oliver Moore