DriveTest Strike Over, Centres Resume Full Operations

It’s the day would-be drivers have been waiting for months to arrive.
DriveTest resumes full operations Monday at 1pm following a four-month strike that tested the patience of thousands waiting to get a driver’s licence and driving school owners and instructors who suffered serious financial strain during the job action.

Nearly 600 employees of Serco DES, the company that runs DriveTest for the province, walked off the job on Aug. 21. On Thursday about 72 per cent of workers voted in favour of ratifying the agreement forged two weeks ago.

Sticking points in negotiations included wages, benefits and a proposal to increase the amount of part-time workers.
The strike has led to a massive backlog and DriveTest is expected to hire an additional 100 employees to deal with the thousands of people wanting to take a road test.
Customers should expect very long waits at DriveTest centres.

“DriveTest is asking customers to wait two or three weeks before making an appointment or coming to a DriveTest Centre, unless they need service for employment or training purposes,” the company’s website says. “This will allow DriveTest to give priority to those customers as they work through the backlog created by the strike.”

If your licence expired on or after Aug. 24, 2009, you’ll still be covered by the automatic licence extension until July 1, 2010.

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