Ontario Construction News staff writer
The Ontario government’s professional engineers and land surveyors are officially on strike, the Professional Engineers Government of Ontario (PEGO) announced.
After 16 months of bargaining with representatives of the province’s treasury board, PEGO initiated a work-to-rule campaign in October. With “little movement”, the union’s action expanded with rotating withdrawals of service by key engineers and surveyors from some of Ontario’s highest priority infrastructure projects.union later expanded its job action by rotating withdrawals of service by key engineers and surveyors from some of Ontario’s highest priority infrastructure projects.
It’s the first time in its 35-year history that union representing about 600 professional engineers and land surveyors has been on strike.
Major provincial government initiatives described by the government as “full steam ahead”, such as Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass, have been impacted by PEGO’s withdrawal of select
Now, as new groups of professional engineers withdraw on a rotating basis, the delivery of important transportation projects are being delayed across the province, in some cases by several years. Examples of delayed projects include:
- Highway interchange reconstruction on 400 series highways across Ontario
- Major rehabilitation and expansion projects such as highway widening and bridge replacements
- Electric vehicle charging stations across northern Ontario
- Property acquisition for construction of major infrastructure projects
- Environmental permitting for major industrial facilities and remediation of contaminated sites and brownfield properties
In recent weeks, PEGO members have held rallies in Downsview, St. Catharines, London, on January 14th in Kingston, and on January 15 in Toronto.
PEGO reached out directly to Premier Doug Ford and his officials last week to outline the dispute and indicated that a settlement can be reached with continued effort.
“Our focus has always been to address the root cause of Ontario’s recruitment and retention challenges for professional engineers and land surveyors. PEGO members earn much less than the wider market for professional engineers and land surveyors in Ontario. This means that the expertise needed to deliver on the ambitious infrastructure agenda of the government has been short supply for far too long,” said Nihar Bhatt, P.Eng., President of PEGO. “PEGO members design and oversee this critical work, saving the government money, protecting taxpayer interests, building public infrastructure smarter, safer, and more efficiently, and ensuring effective planning for the long-term interests of Ontarians”.
“The union and the government are actually now not that far apart on key compensation issues. A settlement is definitely achievable, but Ontario’s Treasury Board needs to show flexibility and come to the table.”
