Transit strike: Union eyes bus driver overtime ban that could park 10% of fleet
Credit to Author: Jennifer Saltman| Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2019 00:48:15 +0000
An overtime ban for bus drivers would likely be the next step in Metro Vancouver’s transit strike if a deal is not reached between Coast Mountain Bus Company and the union representing transit workers.
“Our calculations are that will take out about 10 to 15 per cent of the system right away, and certainly we don’t want to escalate to that level if we don’t need to,” said the Unifor western regional director, Gavin McGarrigle.
Talks between the two sides broke down late last week when the union walked away from the bargaining table, and the strike began on Friday morning with bus drivers refusing to wear uniforms and technicians and skilled-trades workers turning down overtime.
Since the strike began, 56 SeaBus sailings have been cancelled along with a small number of trips on various bus routes throughout the region.
Coast Mountain Bus Company president Mike McDaniel said bus disruptions have been minor so far and there haven’t been any major demand problems due to the SeaBus cancellations, but any disruption is unacceptable.
“We need to be consistent. That’s what our commuters want us to be is reliable, and have the frequency that we have. We’re not able to do that today. It’s a minor disruption so far, but we don’t want it to continue,” McDaniel said.
Coast Mountain Bus Company had 150 buses in reserve as of Friday morning, to cover buses that go out of service due to maintenance delays or breakdowns.
Unifor western regional director Gavin McGarrigle is flanked by Balbir Mann, president of Unifor Local 111 (left), and Mike Smith, president of Unifor 2200 (right), as he speaks to media about the transit strike.
McDaniel said the company was in good shape as of Monday and didn’t expect the job action to compromise bus service in any significant way in the coming days, but that could change.
McGarrigle said the number of spare buses is expected to dwindle as the week wears on. “I’m told from our maintenance workers that by about mid to late week, you’re going to see more and more bus cancellations starting to occur,” McGarrigle said.
While the company is keeping up at the moment, McDaniel said that an overtime ban for bus operators would have a significant impact on service. Coast Mountain runs about 22,000 trips a day, so it would result in somewhere around 2,000 trip cancellations.
“That’s going to be a difficult situation from a service disruption standpoint to predict,” McDaniel said.
New Westminster Mayor Jonathan Coté, who chairs TransLink’s Mayors’ Council, said he Monday was disappointed to see that the two sides had not been able to resolve the labour dispute and urged them to get back to bargaining.
“The reality is, if this labour dispute is to escalate or become prolonged everyone is going to lose, but the biggest losers will be our transit riders, who I know both the transit union and the Coast Mountain Bus Company care very deeply about,” said Coté.
And while he said transit workers deserve a fair, negotiated settlement — including wage increases — he said he didn’t believe those increases should be accomplished by scaling back transit expansion for Metro Vancouver.
The proposal by the union would cost Coast Mountain Bus Company and TransLink $680 million over 10 years, compared to $71 million for the company’s offer. Coté said that acceding to the union’s demands would mean scrapping all bus service improvements in the first and second phase of the 10-year regional transportation plan.
“Now is not the time to be talking about scaling back our plans to to improve bus and transit service across the region,” he said, citing the hard work done by the council to secure funding for the expansion plans, and the region’s reliance on transit.
McGarrigle said the union has always supported transit expansion, and called Coté’s view “one-sided.”
“He’s taken the position of TransLink, where they’re simply saying that you cannot have an expanded system and take care of the workers. We’re asking for people to have both,” McGarrigle said.
“He also said that we should end the job action and go back to negotiations, and clearly it’s the fact that TransLink and the Coast Mountain Bus Company will not address the needs of the workers which is why this job action is occurring.”
For now, the uniform ban for transit operators and overtime ban for mechanics remain in place, McGarrigle said, and the union is focused on getting its message out to the public. He added that job action will continue and escalate until Coast Mountain returns with a better offer.
“It takes two takes two sides to negotiate. We’re ready and willing, but they need to move off the position that they gave us last week, and then we can certainly get back to it in a matter of hours,” he said.
“We’ve been very clear, unless these issues are addressed, this will escalate and it will end in a complete work stoppage.”