The union representing Transit Windsor workers held a media availability Tuesday afternoon to update the public on contract talks.
Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 616 issued a 72-hour strike notice to the City of Windsor on Thursday, but rescinded it hours before the strike deadline of 12:01 am Monday.
ATU International Vice President Manny Sforza says talks began late summer and have been slow and sluggish with the City's bargaining committee coming to the union Thursday and advising that they did not have the ability or authority to negotiate a final wage package.
Sforza says one of the biggest sticking points between the union and the City is the 10 federally mandated sick days affecting close to 300 unionized workers.
"These are federally mandated sick days that came into effect last January. It is clear in the act that the employer is to bare the cost of these sick days. It is the City's position and Transit Windsor's position that our members should be paying for these sick days out of the wage package we are bargaining at the table. That is outrageous."
He says they were told Saturday night that if they did not accept those terms that there would no deal.
"That is bad faith bargaining. You cannot evoke or erode federally mandated benefits under the employment standards act and try to get a group to agree to that at the bargaining table."
Sforza says if the City does not change it's position on that issue they will be filling a complaint with the Federal Labour Relations Board.
He says after talks broke off over the weekend, they are set to resume starting Friday.
"And I want to remind everybody that we continue to evaluate our strike position, hour by hour day by day. And we don't want to go on strike and we don't want to inconvenience the public, but again our priority is to get a fair deal for our members."
He says they will enter talks this weekend without a strike notice and are hopeful a deal can be reached.
Last week, Transit Windsor cancelled the Sunday's special events bus that was heading to the Detroit Lions game.
Sforza says there is no need to cancel this weekend's bus.
"We advised the employer that our members would continue to work past midnight, so why they made that decision is beyond us. Now I also want to add that a point that they told us Friday they were not in a position to give us a wage package because city council was meeting on Monday. That would have been yesterday. We have not had any indication from them that there is a change in the benefit package or an increase to that."
He says he hopes the City comes better prepared when talks resume Friday.