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Quality of management-run driver tests questioned
CARL CLUTCHEY
11/14/2009

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As strike-strapped DriveTest offices reopened this week to deal with certain test appointments – including at Thunder Bay‘s outlet – some question the quality of the tests being conducted by non-unionized management.

On Thursday, the private company contracted by the provincial government reopened six of its 56 outlets to allow high-priority clients, like those trying to get a transport truck or bus licence for employment reasons, take their test.

As the small Thunder Bay office reopened at the city‘s McIntyre Centre plaza, strike pickets appeared periodically.

DriveTest spokesman Paul Dalglish said Friday the company reverted to a plan B strategy to deal with a backlog of exam appointments that some reports have put at 300,000.

Dalglish emphasized the company is using existing managers and not replacement workers.

He said the managers who are temporarily conducting driving tests “are experts who have trained the people who are on strike.”

Some Thunder Bay union officials had their doubts.

The managers “may have the knowledge, but they aren‘t as qualified to conduct a test as the people who are actually doing that job day after day,” said Thunder Bay District Labour Council president Melanie Kelso.

Steelworkers Local 9511 president Jim Young said the union is concerned the company may use “ex-employees, which we would consider scabs (replacement workers).”

Young said the union is “sympathetic to the hardship” of those who can‘t get their driver‘s test.

He said the workers earlier offered to conduct the examinations under the direction of the Ministry of Transportation, the way the testing centres used to operate before they were privatized in 2003.

Attempts to end the three-month strike by the agency‘s 600 driver examiners and support staff hit a major roadblock Wednesday, when workers voted by a margin of 78 per cent to reject a four-year contract that would have provided total wage increases of six per cent.

No new contract talks are scheduled.

The Steelworkers union, which represents the striking workers, said they are concerned about seniority issues and what they say has been a decline in the quality of how examinations are conducted.

MPP Howard Hampton said he‘s not surprised the strike is dragging on.

“I think it‘s clear that a private company is mainly interested in making money, not providing a public service, which this is,” said Hampton (NDP-Kenora-Rainy River).

Dalglish said under the current contract with the Steelworkers, workers at the top of the pay scale earn nearly $24 per hour.

The proposed agreement turned down Wednesday included improvements to benefits and vacation time, Dalglish added.

DriveTest says under its management, wait times for appointments have been decreased substantially.

The Steelworkers say that‘s been achieved by cutting corners, such as allowing school-bus driver candidates to “simulate” a full stop at crosswalks, rather than driving to the nearest railway crossing.
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