Saskatoon Transit thins busy routes in response to ATU Local 615 job action

City officials are thinning out Saskatoon Transit bus frequency in well served areas as they work to mitigate the effects of its union’s job action, according to the city’s transit director.

The move comes as Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 615’s members refuse to work overtime amid stalled contract talks with the city. The group has been without a contract since 2012 and the dispute now lies largely in changes to its pension plan.

“Certainly overtime is relied upon in some circumstances to get the work done,” ATU Local 615 president, Jim Yakubowski, said.

“It’s not only prevalent to operators; it’s obviously all of our departments.”

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READ MORE: City holds firm in contract dispute with Saskatoon Transit workers

In response to the action, Saskatoon Transit director Jim McDonald said his staff has been looking to “thin out frequency before we completely take a route off the road.”

“For those people where we have 45-minute to an hour service, that’s all they’ve got. If I take that away, that’s like two hours or two-and-a-half, three hours without a bus,” McDonald said in an interview Tuesday.

“Whereas if I got something that’s going every 15 minutes, I can pull one and it’s not going to affect them as seriously as it would the other people.”

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City officials alerted riders that 20 routes were being affected Tuesday afternoon. McDonald said disruptions arise because operators who would usually provide additional service to busy routes now have more gaps to fill than they are able to.

“If for example the night before somebody calls in sick, and I’ve already scheduled my spare board operators to do work in the afternoon or the evening, then I will put out a call for overtime,” McDonald said.

“That’s what we’re being affected with right now.”

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READ MORE: Saskatoon Transit workers taking job action against city

McDonald said overtime accounts for roughly five per cent of yearly Saskatoon Transit wages, however noted the overtime use decreased by 40 per cent in the past year.

“We have been doing a lot of hiring in the last year, so it would have been a lot worse if this would have happened last year,” McDonald said.