Facility attendants go on strike in Lakeshore after unanimous vote

Twenty-one part-time Town of Lakeshore facility attendants who work primarily at the Atlas Tube Centre are on strike after a unanimous vote Tuesday afternoon. The strike was announced by Christie Armstrong, business rep for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 636, who earlier in the day expressed exasperation over the manner in which Town of Lakeshore officials were conducting bargaining. “I’ve been bargaining for many years, I’ve never come across this,” she said.

Before the strike vote, the town issued a news release warning of a possible strike and confirming that town facilities would remain open, offering all regular services and programs. However, people going in and out may run into pickets. The facility attendants do cleaning, maintenance and some ice resurfacing. They joined IBEW Local 636 one year ago and began negotiations with the town for a first collective agreement last fall. The part-time facility attendants make $20.36 an hour. “Certainly, that hourly rate is at the forefront of negotiations,” Kristen Newman, the town’s director of legislation and legal services, said earlier in the day. She said if there was a strike, work normally done by the part-timers would be done by non-union staff, at least in the short term.

The facility attendants met at 3 p.m. to vote on striking.

The IBEW’s Armstrong said the workers were in a legal strike position one week ago, but negotiations continued so they held off striking. In recent days, the town gave the union a final offer, and the union made a counter offer, she said. She said union negotiators were expecting a phone call after Monday night’s town council meeting, assuming the town would either agree to the counter offer or present a counter of their own. Instead, she said, “they took the position it’s off the table.”

She said she tried to find out from the town what “off the table” means throughout the day Tuesday.

She said the workers voted 100 per cent to strike because the town “refused to counter our offer.” In the town news release prior to the strike, Lakeshore Mayor Tom Bain said the town values the contributions made by the facility attendants.

“The town will continue to negotiate in a thoughtful and respectful manner that contemplates the fiscal realities of operating such facilities and respecting public dollars,” he said. Armstrong said the major two outstanding issues were wages and scheduling. “Right now, they’re the lowest-paid arena in Windsor/Essex County and we’re just asking to be a little bit more in the middle,” she said.

The Atlas Tube Centre is a hotbed of recreational activity in the town. Its aquatic programs are enjoyed by more than 1,200 people during the winter session, more than 1,000 people participate in general programs and thousands of hockey players and skaters use the ice rinks.

This strike does not affect the full-time facility attendants, who would continue with their normal tasks.