The City of Chilliwack will join other municipalities in the Fraser Valley in an appeal to the province to appoint a mediator in a month-long transit strike in the region.
Bus drivers and maintenance workers with CUPE Local 561 walked off the job on March 20, cutting regular bus service to Abbotsford, Aggasiz, Harrison, Chilliwack, Hope and Mission. HandyDART continues to operate at essential service levels.
On Wednesday, Chilliwack council voted to join the cities of Abbotsford and Mission along with the Fraser Valley Regional District in a call for a mediator.
The motion notes that contract bargaining is protected from interference under B.C.’s Labour Relations Code, and that municipalities have a long-standing rule of not commenting on negotiations.
However, it notes the province’s Minister of Labour has the ability to weigh in to assist with mediation and arbitration.
“We can’t really speak into it because it’s not something we can do, but we can do this,” Chilliwack Mayor Ken Popove told council.
Coun. Jeff Shields referenced last year’s protracted transit dispute in Squamish, Pemberton and Whistler, adding the city needed to do what it could.
“I think its a grand idea, we’re one month into it and there’s a total impasse,” he said. “We’ve seen what happened in the Sea to Sky corridor where it lasted six months and there didn’t really seem to be a whole lot that happened, so I think there needs to be a push from the municipalities that are truly affected.”
Transit workers are locked in a dispute with First Transit, a U.S.-based contractor that operates Fraser Valley bus service on behalf of BC Transit.
Workers have been without a contract since April, 2020, and the union says it is pushing for a pension and wage parity with transit workers elsewhere in Metro Vancouver.
Earlier this week, Labour Minister Harry Bains told Global News he had offered mediation services, but that both parties in the dispute had yet to come to the conclusion they needed it.
“Mediation can’t help in my view until they agree and they’re ready for mediation,” he said.