Transport

With the COVID-19 pandemic, the contribution of truck drivers to the well-being of all Canadians has been, more than ever, invaluable. Without them, the economy would have almost completely ceased to function and chaos would have quickly taken hold in our cities and countryside.

Ottawa is providing much-needed and long-overdue relief for truck drivers who continue to grapple with the cost of food on the road.

Workers at the Robert Transport warehouse, Exceldor division in Beloeil, ratified their first collective agreement yesterday. The contract was ratified by nearly 90% of the company's 30 or so employees.

With less than a year to go for the implementation of the electronic logging device (ELD) mandate, federal Transportation Minister Marc Garneau is once again displaying leadership on road safety by reminding the trucking industry and the Canadian public that the much needed regulation is well on its way to being delivered.

Teamsters Local Union 31 recently won an important victory for injured workers, especially truck drivers.

Right from the start of the coronavirus outbreak, there have been waves of accolades for nurses, personal care workers, cashiers, and workers in other trades – and rightly so. One blind spot in our collective view of the situation, though, has been the necessary but unnoticed contribution, every day, by men and women truck drivers.

Remember the 35 tons of food delivered to a food bank in Wood Buffalo, which was flooded in April? Well, the Local Union 362 truck that made this essential delivery was stolen about 10 days ago! The only thing the thieves left behind was the trailer!

Low-income workers considered essential in the fight against COVID-19 will see their wages increased as a result of a $4 billion federal-provincial agreement, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed today.

The federal government has decided to lift the hours of service exemption in road transportation effective Thursday, April 30, 2020, at 11:59 p.m. The Teamsters have been pressing Ottawa for this decision for the past few weeks, holding several conference calls on the issue.

Teamsters Local Union 362 in Alberta is using its semi-trailer truck to get food to the Wood Buffalo Food Bank, which lost its building and all the food inside to flooding on Sunday. The union has so far delivered approximately 35 metric tons of food from Food Banks Alberta to a temporary staging area.