Strike averted for school bus drivers in Durham, Scarborough

About 10,000 students will be able to ride the school bus tomorrow morning on schedule after a driver strike was averted at the last minute.
Negotiations between Unifor and First Student Canada continued until the midnight deadline.
Representatives came out of the meeting to tell reporters that a tentative deal had been struck, avoiding a widespread strike that would have affected schools in Durham and Scarborough.

This is good news for drivers and good news for parents,” said Unifor Ontario Regional Director Naureen Rizvi. “We have reached a deal that addresses our key concerns and better reflects the hours drivers actually work.”
Rizvi told CP24 earlier Wednesday the 260 newly-unionized drivers, who serve all of Durham Region and nine schools in eastern Scarborough, are effectively paid less than minimum wage when several routine unpaid tasks are taken into account.
“You have a driver in Ajax for example, who picks up their bus but their run is in Scarborough. The period of time while they are driving from Ajax to Scarborough is unpaid,” Rizvi said “They get paid only when they pick up the first child and the pay stops when they drop off the last child.”
They must also complete regular inspections of their vehicles and warm up their diesel buses before leaving the yard, especially during winter months.
Rizvi said ten other groups of bus drivers represented by Unifor are paid for this time, but the Durham and Scarborough group are not.
Details of the tentative agreement have not yet been made public.The union will have a chance to ratify the deal in the coming days, Unifor said.
The two sides negotiated for almost three weeks.
Last year, several bus companies across the province reported difficulty in recruiting enough drivers to service all of their routes.
Industry observers at the time blamed low pay, the high time commitment required on the part of drivers, and other developments such as ridesharing app Uber luring away candidates.
Rizvi said last year’s shortages prompted more than 1,000 drivers to certify and unionize with Un