After years of being stuck in arbitration, the Toronto Transit Commission is moving ahead on random alcohol and drug testing of its employees.

In a letter to employees sent Monday morning, TTC CEO Andy Byford said the TTC board approved the funding for random drug testing at its March 23 board hearing.

The TTC, which continues to see “instances of impairment while at work,” according to Byford, will also be asking the Ontario government to make random drug testing mandatory for public transit agencies.

Random drug testing has been part of the “fitness for duty” policy since 2011, but funding wasn’t approved at some point, and the issue went into a lengthy arbitration process between the TTC and Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113, the TTC’s largest union.

The move was sparked by an August 2011 bus crash that killed a TTC rider and injured 11 others. The bus driver was charged with negligence and possession of cannabis, but was not found to be impaired.

In the letter, Byford said the TTC is now working to finalize the program over the coming months, despite the ongoing arbitration.

“Given the seriousness of this issue — it is, after all, a workplace and public safety matter — the arbitration process is taking far too long to conclude,” Byford said in his letter.

Since 2010, when the fitness for duty regime was first implemented, the TTC has seen “continued instances of impairment while at work,” Byford said in his letter.

“That is simply unacceptable.”

The random tests would determine only whether an employee was impaired at the time of the test, and not whether employees consume drugs or alcohol in general, Byford stressed.

“What you do on your own time is none of our business, so long as it doesn’t affect your ability to do your job,” he said in the letter.

The move was swiftly criticized by ATU Local 113 president Bob Kinnear, who said he had only been informed of the TTC’s decision on Monday afternoon, during a labour board hearing.

“That’s not reflective of a cooperative relationship, when they give you a verbal warning before they know it’s going to get out,” Kinnear said.

Kinnear said he was disappointed that the TTC is side-stepping the arbitration process.

“It would seem to me the TTC is taking the position that they’re going to ignore our collective agreement. They’re going to arbitrarily impose whatever working conditions and provisions that they feel like,” he said.

The union will ask the arbitrator for an injunction on random drug testing, but if that doesn’t go through, the union is willing to take the issue to court, Kinnear said.

“There is a lot of discontent amongst our members, and they are extremely frustrated. I can only imagine to what level that frustration is going to escalate to once the members find out this,” he said.

TTC spokesperson Brad Ross said random drug testing has been approved since 2011, and the reason it hadn’t been implemented yet was more the lack of funding than the ongoing arbitration.

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Ross said he’s willing to see the issue go to court if that’s what the union wants, as it will probably take less time to resolve there than in arbitration.

“We feel as an organization that we need to get on with it,” Ross said.

“If the union decides the courts is where they want to go with it … then perhaps that is the better place for it to be tested.”