By STEVE ARNOLD
The Hamilton Spectator (August 26, 1998 edition)

Ontario's biggest public service union is promising to fight a plan to charge employees parking fees at government office buildings.

While some government workers already pay for parking, the Ontario Realty Corporation (ORC) has a new plan to contract-out the operation of parking at government office buildings, taking free parking benefits away from workers at 25 sites.

"Our position is that this amounts to a change in working conditions," said Randy Robinson, communications officer for the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU). "You might as well call it a pay cut, because it has the same effect."

Under the plan, tenders will be sought from parking lot companies to operate facilities at government sites such as the OPP-Ministry of Transportation facility in Burlington, the provincial court houses in Milton, Chatham and Brampton, Robarts School for the Deaf in London and the psychiatric hospitals in London and Whitby.

Wayne Breganza, spokesman for ORC, said the plan would add about $2 million a year to the government's coffers, while also relieving it of the expense of collecting parking fees by payroll deduction.

New fees are being levied, he said, at 25 lots where government office parking competes with commercial parking lots, or where employees have the option of taking public transit to work.

Those lots account for 9,100 parking spaces.

"We're shifting our parking operations to a market rate and shifting our efforts away from non-core government businesses," he said. "By allowing the parking management industry to manage this system it will become more efficient because they are experienced at it."

Fees to be charged vary according to commercial rates in the area - OPP employees can expect to pay $5 a day to park at their office in Burlington, while employees at the government office in Aurora will pay only $20 a month and Brampton courthouse staff will pay $11 a month.

While many government workers were unaware of the new plan, Breganza explained they will be given 30 days notice before contractors start collecting fees at specific sites.

"Most of our employees aren't going to get detailed information about this until their lots are ready to be turned over," he said.

Robinson said an OPSEU unit in Guelph has already protested the plan to its local employee relations committee, and now the union is taking the matter to a government committee which oversees relations with all public service workers.

"We're going to take this up centrally with the employer and hopefully they will see the sense of our position," he said.

Robinson speculated the parking fees are simply a sweetener being added to entice bids for contracts to manage various government office buildings - another initiative being administered by ORC.

"This is really just another way for this government to get more money-making opportunities out to the private sector," he said. "This parking issue is something that seems to come up whenever the government is looking for some more money."

At the Burlington OPP detachment, Const. Glenn Bell said the new charges will push him into finding other ways of getting to work - but they will be a real hardship for employees who come from as far as St. Catharines and Niagara Falls to work in Burlington.

"I'm sure it's going to mean a lot of people don't park at the office any more and start coming by public transit," added Bell, local representative of Ontario Provincial Police Association.