Thunder Bay Bombardier workers 'doing everything' they can to meet TTC streetcar quota: union president

Workers at Thunder Bay's Bombardier plant are doing everything they can to meet streetcar delivery goals for the (Toronto Transit Commission), but are still struggling to keep up with the order despite improvements to the production line, the plant's union president said.

The company announced this week it would miss its 2017 target, delivering at least five fewer streetcars to the TTC than promised by the end of the year.

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The cars are built at Bombardier's Thunder Bayplant, where Unifor Local 1075 president Dominic Pasqualino said about 850 workers, as well as all management and office staff, are focussed on the TTC contract.

"We're doing everything we can to achieve the goal," Pasqualino said. "It was an aggressive schedule to do this for this year."

Part shortages

"We were hampered early on in the year by some part shortages, and we still suffer from some part shortages right now."

Still, Pasqualino said, the production process has been expanded and more staff hired, but he added the plant is still slightly behind its target completion rate of three streetcars per day (at the beginning of the year, he said, the plant was producing one car a month).

Meeting the goal, Pasqualino said, "means maybe getting some new suppliers and having some additional plants help us out."

"Our goal right now is to try and make sure that our cars are being built on time, and we're doing everythingwe possibly can here in the plant," he said.

Bombardier's contract with the TTC is scheduled to be completed in 2019.