PEGO strike action continues with Ontario's professional engineers and land surveyors withdrawing services

TORONTO, Jan. 16, 2025 /CNW/ - For the first time in its 35-year history, legal strike action has been initiated by Professional Engineers Government of Ontario (PEGO), the union representing the province of Ontario's approximately 600 professional engineers and land surveyors, and continues as we enter the new year, affecting key Ontario infrastructure projects.

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 project teams. 

PEGO on strike (CNW Group/Professional Engineers Government of Ontario (PEGO))

After 16 months of collective bargaining with TBS, PEGO initiated its legal job action in October 2024 with a work-to-rule campaign. Due to little movement by TBS, the union's action expanded with rotating withdrawals of service by key engineers and surveyors from some of Ontario's highest priority infrastructure projects.

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

Successful and timely construction is a result of strong planning and design work in the early stages of complex infrastructure projects – work that PEGO engineers and land surveyors are engaged in every day.

In recent weeks, PEGO members have held rallies in Downsview, St. Catharines, London (picture below — PEGO rally outside London MTO offices, January 9^th, 2025), on January 14^th in Kingston, and on January 15 in Toronto. Earlier this week, PEGO reached out directly to Premier Doug Ford and his officials 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," said Bhatt.

SOURCE Professional Engineers Government of Ontario (PEGO)

Nihar Bhatt, P.Eng., President of Professional Engineers Government of Ontario (PEGO), [email protected]