Newsstand: March 27, 2015

In the news this morning: the U of T strike has ended, the Sunshine List comes out today, and drug testing may soon be increasing for TTC workers.

By Tannara Yelland • Illustration by Matthew Daley

After a vote last night, University of Toronto employees represented by CUPE 3902 Unit 1 workers—teaching assistants and other educational workers who are also students—have ended their month-long strike in favour of binding arbitration. The vote was 942 for and 318 against, leading Local 3902 chair Erin Black to say that while negotiating a contract would have been the ideal outcome, the group had spoken decisively in favour of ending the strike. A neutral third party will now oversee the creation of a contract.

The province’s Sunshine List will be released today, providing the names, occupations, and salaries of every public-sector worker who earns more than $100,000. It’s expected to include more than 100,000 names; last year’s list had 97,796 names, which was nearly double the amount of names on the list in 2008 (53,774). The chief executive of Ontario Power Generation topped the list last year, earning $1.71 million, and Hydro One chief executive Carmine Marcello earned $728,570. The list doesn’t just include chief executives, cabinet ministers, and high-paid doctors, however: last year’s list also included employees one might not expect to make $100,000 in a single year, like police officers.

The TTC board approved random drug and alcohol testing for TTC employees more than three years ago, but the policy is just now on the verge of coming into effect, pending arbitration with the TTC’s largest union. There are already policies in place to test people who have completed drug and alcohol treatment, when there is “reasonable cause,” and prior to hiring. Even TTC CEO Andy Byford said post-incident testing has turned up “very few instances” considering the number of drivers employed by the TTC. Amalgamated Transit Union president Bob Kinnear said the TTC is downplaying the cost of more drug tests, and that the major concern in crashes and other incidents isn’t substance use or abuse, but rather sleep deprivation.