Access-A-Ride drivers looking for mediation

By Lethbridge Herald on September 5, 2025.

Nathan Reiter
Lethbridge Herald
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Employees of the city’s Access-A-Ride transit service are seeking mediation with the City of Lethbridge after days of face-to-face meetings have led to no new contract.

Access-A-Ride workers are represented by the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 987. According to ATU 987 president Travis Oberg, there have been 18 days of face-to-face meetings with the city, but a new contract has yet to be agreed upon. Requesting mediation is the first step towards a potential strike by Access-A-Ride workers. 

Oberg says plenty of progress has been made, but there is still a ways to go before a deal is reached.

“We’ve had lots of progress in a lot of items, but we’ve gotten down to fairness for our Access-A-Ride members. Our members are below wage comparators, especially to their transit counterparts. When we talk about fair equity, there’s a couple provisions of the collective agreement that we also believe that they should have in comparison to the transit main agreement because we have two collective agreements. It’s been a journey for us to get these employees to the same wage comparators as if they are their fellow transit operators.”

Oberg adds that the union has a coupleof  non-financial requests to help make the job easier on workers.

“We believe the City has been unable to withdraw from some of their concessionary proposals and therefore as a result of that, we declared impasse and said it’s time to bring in a mediator to try to bridge this gap at the table as well. We’re also pushing for what we call as minimum load and unload times for our passengers, which alleviates some pressure on the operators and ensures that we’re providing a safe and reliable service.”

ATU 987 has been without a contract since the beginning of 2025. Under the Labour Act, the previous contract continues in force until a renewal of a collective agreement or a lockout or strike.

Oberg says the union is hopeful it can come to a new agreement in the near future.

“We’ve seen over the course of the last few years that the city has treated other employees with more dignity and fair compensation to their wages. We’re asking for the city to ensure that they provide fair compensation to these employees who have really suffered over the last four years and need to be rectified to ensure that they’re at a fair competitive value for the work that they are doing on a regular basis.”