WHITE RIVER— On July 7, 2022, Unifor Council 4000 and Local 100 announced the union's 72 hours' strike notice to VIA Rail after talks failed to progress.
That means that VIA Rail’s unionized employees could be going on strike by the end of this coming week-end.
According to VIA Rail workers news release, “From June 20 to July 1, 2022 both Unifor Council 4000 and Unifor Local 100 conducted strike votes with VIA Rail members across Canada.”
The results for the vote were 99.4%of Unifor members were in favour of strike action at Local 100 and 99.3 % in favour of strike action from Council 4000 members.
Al Cresswell, from CFNO radio had the chance to speak with White River’s Mayor Angelo Bazzoni. The conversation clearly indicated that the mayor was “not impressed.”
Cresswell’s interview of Mayor Bazzoni, revealed that, “Last month VIA Rail had resumed its regular three day a week Budd Car run between White River and Sudbury.” White River mayor is concerned that a strike would be another obstacle for people of Northern Ontario to have to overcome.
The conversation between Cresswell and Bazzoni brought out that, “Up until last month, VIA Rail had scaled down their scheduled run between White River and Sudbury to just once per week because of the pandemic.”
Cresswell also expressed his concerns, having lived in the region for many years.“This is just another factor where its difficult to get businesses off the ground in the North. The Via strike will naturally have an impact on the tourism trade. There’s many of the rural tourism outfits that rely on these transportation links, so I’m hoping that it can get resolve quite quickly, said Cresswell,” said Cresswell.
The Northern Ontario tourism industry has been dealt a crippling hand during the pandemic. Now, with a possibility of a VIA Rail strike coming into affect as of midnight Sunday, should a deal not be reached by Monday, July 11, 2022. This strike will surely continue to force Northern Ontario rural tourism outfitters to struggle to keep their businesses afloat.
