On the morning of November 17th, the Trent Central Student Association held a Town Hall with their membership to discuss ATU Local 1320’s negotiations with the City of Peterborough, and the impact of a potential strike on students. While the union reached a tentative agreement in the mid-morning of the 17th, the TCSA executives leading the Town Hall seemed uninformed on a number of key issues, including when a strike would occur, while speculating on the length of any prospective labour action despite having no basis for their claims. 

In short, here was a preponderance of misleading messaging to the membership both during and following the Town Hall, specifically in the TCSA’s announcement of the tentative agreement. 

Tentative agreements, while an outwardly positive indication that negotiations are coming to an end, are emphatically not indicative that a strike will not occur as union members have not yet ratified the agreement. This, however, did not stop the TCSA from announcing to its membership that a “strike had been averted.”

Arthur learned that a tentative agreement between transit workers and the City had been reached at 11:30 on November 17th after reaching ATU 1320 President Cory MacLeod over the phone. MacLeod shared that while his team had not managed a win on every front during the negotiations, he would be instructing his membership to vote yes on the deal.

However, MacLeod remained candid in his appraisal that some among his membership may not vote in favour of the deal therefore placing the fifty percent plus-one margin required to ratify the tentative agreement in jeopardy. 

Throughout the Town Hall, there was a notable amount of speculation and inconsistency in information about the issue of the strike action and labour negotiation at hand. When Arthur inquired about the basis of Anctil’s repeated assertion that the impending strike would only last two days, Anctil admitted that it was “much more speculative.” 

“What we are imagining, based off the conversations we’re having with the ATU, as well as how their conversation with the City has been going with bargaining—because of how large the impact is going to be on the city—that's what we imagine the response will be from the city,” Anctil explained, while providing no further details on where the two day figure came from. 

As students inquired about transit alternatives to discussions about the specific consequences of a potential strike on the Trent community, TCSA Executives repeatedly made assertions which contradicted information contained in news reports by local media based on press releases from both the City of Peterborough and the ATU. 

Among these details is the fact that while ATU 1320 would be in a legal strike position as of Saturday November 18th, the ATU had publicly announced that the strike would not begin until Monday November 20th at 12:01 AM if an agreement was not reached and ratified over the weekend.   

When asked about alternatives to Peterborough Transit which the TCSA might be offering in the event of a strike, Anctil explained that “the TCSA will not be able to offer any alternatives because of the motion that was passed by the board during the past few Board of Directors meetings” referring to the decision the Board made to ensure that striking ATU workers would have their pickt lines respected by the TCSA. 

However, Anctil mentioned that a carpooling form would be offered through the TCSA app. 

When asked if there was a way that students could help accelerate the negotiation process, President Anctil mentioned the TCSA's email campaign to City Councillors which asked students to directly engage with their Councillors over this issue.

After Rehmen finished posing questions to Anctil, the floor was opened up to questions from the audience. During this part of the Town Hall, a student suggested the alternative of utilising rideshares after Anctil confirmed that the University had no plans to hybridize classes in light of the strike. 

“Yeah, I think that would probably be best,” Anctil agreed. 

Arthur then asked which TCSA services would be available during the strike. Anctil reminded students that the TCSA office will be closed “in solidarity” with ATU 1320 with the exception of prescription pickup through their new locker system, meaning no staff will be on site for the duration of the strike.  

Adding more confusion is the wording of TCSA’s later announcement which seem to suggest that the existence of a tentative agreement is a clear indication that a strike has been averted despite the transit union membership having not voted to ratify it.

While on Friday afternoon, Trent Communications issued a follow-up email with the claim that “transit service is continuing as scheduled” which always would have been the case over the weekend regardless of a tentative agreement being reached, the TCSA later posted on their Instagram story, claiming that “a potential strike has been averted” with a link to the City of Peterborough’s press release regarding the agreement. 

The City’s statement, it should be noted, was careful to assert that “ATU members will vote on the tentative agreement” and that pending ratification “an agreement would avert a potential service disruption.”

ATU 1320 will announce the results of the membership vote on Saturday November 18th, at which time the community will know for sure whether a work stoppage at Peterborough Transit will occur.