Transit strike: Union, company return to bargaining table Tuesday
Credit to Author: Jennifer Saltman| Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2019 03:25:20 +0000
Up to 36,000 more cars could end up on Metro Vancouver roads during the morning rush hour, and thousands of people will be scrambling to get around later this week if bus and SeaBus services are shut down due to strike action.
Workers who operate and maintain the buses and SeaBuses are planning to walk off the job Wednesday, Thursday and Friday this week, with regular service resuming on Nov. 30. However, the union and Coast Mountain Bus Company will return to the bargaining table on Tuesday afternoon with the goal of averting a full-scale strike.
SkyTrain, Canada Line, West Coast Express, West Vancouver Blue Bus, HandyDART and some community shuttles will continue to operate normally, although likely with some crowding and delays.
“The union’s planned strike, set to start on Wednesday, will have a devastating impact on the people of Metro Vancouver,” said TransLink CEO Kevin Desmond, adding that he is “deeply disappointed” about the impending escalation in job action.
To date, bus drivers have been refusing to wear uniforms since Nov. 1 and have refused to work overtime for three days. Another day of the overtime ban is set for Friday. Maintenance workers have been refusing overtime since Nov. 1.
This has resulted in numerous trip cancellations for buses and SeaBuses.
Talks between Unifor, the union representing the workers, and Coast Mountain Bus Company, the employer and an operating company of TransLink, have broken down twice.
Unifor western regional director Gavin McGarrigle said the union decided to go back to bargaining out of respect for passengers.
“I remain pessimistic that (the company) have got the message, but the pressure on them is building — they’re putting out service alerts right now — and we are going back to the table hoping for a fair deal, but preparing for the worst,” McGarrigle said.
On Monday, TransLink released information about how the shutdown will affect the region’s transit users.
More than 250,000 daily transit journeys — a complete transit trip that could include a number of transfers — use only buses and about 18,000 include a ride on the SeaBus. More than 11,000 people use the SeaBus on a typical fall workday, almost half of whom are North Shore residents.
There are more than 500,000 boardings on the SkyTrain system each day, and more than half of those use bus or SeaBus to get to or from the train.
There are more than half a million jobs that are within a 10-minute walk of the bus network, and for some major employment areas — the University of B.C., the Broadway corridor, southwest Coquitlam, Tilbury and Annacis islands, and Big Bend and Discovery Place in Burnaby — the bus is the only transit option.
Many who usually rely on transit to get around will end up driving their cars, which could put up to 36,000 more vehicles on the roads during the morning rush hour, according to transportation modelling. It is unclear where exactly those vehicles will be causing congestion.
“I would generally think it will be seen throughout the region, on the major highways and arterials,” said Desmond.
Those who use bus as part of their commute and don’t have a driver’s licence or own a vehicle — 60 per cent of workers — will have to find another way, which could include carpooling, car sharing, walking or biking.
Users who don’t have vehicles include students and people with lower incomes.
Bus passengers tend to be young adults, with 41 per cent being between the ages of 17 and 34. About 76,000 UBC and Simon Fraser University students regularly use the bus to get to the Point Grey and Burnaby Mountain campuses, along with other campuses in the region.
Twenty-five per cent of bus passengers are from households with an income of $40,000 per year or less.
“The hardest hit will be felt by some of our most vulnerable people in our region: the elderly, people with disabilities, people with no other options,” said Desmond.
In the labour dispute between bus and SeaBus workers and the company, wages are a major sticking point, along with working conditions for bus drivers.
Coast Mountain has offered a 12.2-per-cent pay increase for skilled trades over four years, and a 9.6-per-cent pay increase for transit operators over the same period. Unifor had sought an increase of 15.2 per cent over four years for bus drivers and 16.7 per cent over four years for maintenance workers, and parity with drivers in other jurisdictions and maintenance workers within the transit authority.
Under the current contract, conventional bus drivers start at $22.83 an hour during a 30-day training period, then go from $24.46 an hour to $32.61 an hour after 24 months of employment.
On the issue of working conditions for bus drivers, the company offered, for the first time, guaranteed recovery time. Drivers would receive 40 minutes of recovery time per shift and be paid double for every minute of the recovery time missed because of traffic.
SkyTrain attendants, control operators, administration, maintenance and technical staff took a strike vote last week, with 96.8 per cent of workers voting to strike. However, bargaining with the B.C. Rapid Transit Company took place over the weekend and mediated discussions began on Monday.
The main concerns are wages, staffing levels, forced overtime and sick leave. The company has offered a two-per-cent wage increase per year, but the union has not divulged what it is seeking.
Wages for SkyTrain workers vary based on a person’s duties. On the low end, a receptionist or data-entry clerk makes $24.95 per hour, and a customer service attendant makes $26.43 per hour, while an escalator/elevator technician, the highest-paid tradesperson, makes $49.94 per hour.