At least 14 SeaBus sailings were cancelled Friday, as roughly 5,000 Metro Vancouver bus and SeaBus operators and maintenance workers began job action after talks broke off between the union and their employer.
Unifor locals 111 and 2200 say they left the bargaining table Thursday because the Coast Mountain Bus Company (CMBC) did not change its offer on wages or working conditions.
The passing of the midnight deadline means workers are now taking job action but are not yet walking off the job completely. Still, some delays could be seen as soon as Friday afternoon.
Here’s what you need to know about how your commute might be affected and what happens next.
How does this impact bus and SeaBus service?
Instead of a full-blown strike, transit operators will begin working out of uniform and maintenance workers will refuse to work overtime starting at 8 a.m. Friday.
Some drivers were also observed operating buses Friday with the fare box covered, but the union says it has not directed drivers to stop accepting fares.
TransLink and CMBC president Michael McDaniel said the job action would lead to up to 14 SeaBus sailing cancellations on Friday, and a further 30 cancellations over the weekend.
McDaniel said every SeaBus trip must have an engineer aboard, and the company does not have enough engineers to operate all three SeaBuses without workers on overtime.
TransLink said that the overtime ban will also affect bus service as maintenance work begins to pile up.
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“It’s going to mean some of our buses can’t be repaired, and that means our fleet will shrink,” TransLink spokesperson Jill Drews said. “So we’ll have to cancel some service.”
Drews said the routes that will be affected won’t be determined until crews see “how the day shapes up” and where resources need to be devoted.
“It’s going to be confusing, I understand that. It’s disappointing, we understand that as well,” she said.
As of Friday evening, no bus routes appeared to have been cancelled or reduced due to the job action.
TransLink is advising passengers to watch its website and Twitter feed for information on possible disruptions. Drews also advises users to leave extra time for their commutes.
What won’t be impacted?
Job action will not affect SkyTrain, Canada Line, West Coast Express or HandyDART service, or contracted shuttle services in Langley and on Bowen Island.
It also won’t have any effect on the West Vancouver Blue Bus system, which is operated by a different company.
The Metro Vancouver Transit Police say they will also increase staff to deal with any crowding at SkyTrain stations.
Why is a full strike not happening?
The union says it wants to minimize the disruption to the public while continuing to put pressure on CMBC through this first phase of job action.
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It also wants to raise public awareness about the union’s position and is hoping the sight of bus drivers out of uniform will spark conversations with passengers.
If CMBC does not meet the workers’ demands in the form of a new offer, the union has said it would consider rotating strikes as a next step before a full-on walkout.
If workers go on strike, it would be the first time since a four-month transit strike in 2001.
The union has said it wants to avoid the “complete chaos” of that strike, adding that a full walkout now would be even worse due to the increased ridership throughout the region.
What do the workers want?
The union has been without a contract since the end of March and says its members are increasingly stretched amid surging ridership on the Metro Vancouver transit system.
The union alleges CMBC’s latest offer does not adequately address concerns over those working conditions, including guaranteeing minimum break times.
“Our members have told us they just don’t have enough time to recover, to have a bite to eat, to go to the washroom, to simply just reset themselves as they go from one route to the next,” Unifor western regional director Gavin McGarrigle said.
He added that it’s also increased the anger and, at times, the abuse drivers face from transit riders.
“There are people being passed by two, three, four full buses. People trying to get home or to school, they’re not in a good frame of mind when they see that happening,” he said.
“We’ve seen assaults on our members increase over the years as well.”
The union also says its members are underpaid compared to transit workers in large cities like Toronto, where McGarrigle says drivers are paid about $3 more per hour.
But McDaniel said the employer had made “fair and reasonable offers” to the union “greater than most other public-sector settlements in B.C.”
On Friday, he said meeting the union’s wage demands would cost the company more than half a billion dollars, money he said could be spent on transit expansion and improvement.
“The deal that the union has given us in their last offer is $680 million across 10 years,” he said. “Ours represents $71 million across 10 years. We need to be fiscally responsible.”
McDaniels said maintenance trades workers were being offered a 12 per cent wage increase over four years, while transit operators were offered 10 per cent over four years. Both work out to more than the two per cent annual increase other public-sector unions have been offered under the NDP.
The union argues CMBC’s bargaining language has not changed since the 72-hour strike notice was issued on Monday.
No further negotiations were scheduled between the union and CMBC as of Friday night.
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