Metro Van bus, SeaBus strike begins
Posted January 22, 2024 3:29 am.
Last Updated January 22, 2024 8:23 pm.
A 48-hour strike stalling bus and SeaBus services in Metro Vancouver has begun.
TransLink confirmed just after 3 a.m. Monday that services were affected “due to ongoing job action at CMBC by CUPE 4500.”
Listen to CityNews 1130 LIVE now!The Canada Line, Expo and Millennium SkyTrain Lines, West Coast Express, HandyDART, West Vancouver Blue Bus, Bowen Island Community Shuttles, and Langley Community Shuttles are not affected.
“Customers should arrange alternate travel plans if they typically rely on bus and SeaBus to get around,” TransLink said in a statement Monday morning.
The union, which represents about 180 transit supervisors at the Coast Mountain Bus Company, announced on Thursday that it would be “withdrawing all services” beginning Jan. 22 for two days if an agreement with the employer had not been reached.
Mediated talks had been underway all weekend.
A statement from Coast Mountain Bus Company says the union rejected a deal that would have included improvements to overtime pay and benefits.
“Unfortunately, the union again refused the improved offer. This is unacceptable and unreasonable,” CMBC President Michael McDaniel said in a statement Monday morning.
“Disruption to customers could end immediately if the union accepted the reasonable offer that is on the table. We remain willing to join the union at the table and urge them to accept this reasonable offer.”
Meanwhile, bus and SeaBus users are being urged to sign up for alerts specific to their routes to ensure they can get where they need to amid the escalation in job action.
CMBC says TransLink will inform transit users of “impacts to service as they are known.”
CUPE 4500 worked hard to achieve deal: union spokesperson
CUPE 4500 spokesperson Liam O’Neill said Monday afternoon that the union “has put in a solid effort to try to find compromise.”
He says members have “provided compromise and solutions in an effort to avoid these service disruptions,” which were rejected.
“We’re not interested in bargaining in the media, and yet Coast Mountain Bus … seem more interested in assigning blame and to smearing our members than to getting the deal,” O’Neill said, adding members feel Coast Mountain is trying to “bully us into accepting their proposals.”
“There is a long-standing wage discrepancy that we’re trying to fix. In TransLink, our members do the same work as other supervisors in TransLink, and yet, they’re paid less. We need to fix that wage discrepancy and we’re trying to do that.”
O’Neill claims fixing the wage discrepancy would cost the employer “less than an additional 0.05 per cent of their annual budget for salary benefits and wages.”
“Our proposal package that we’ve provided, we believe is reasonable and fair not only for our members but for [CMBC],” he said.
What happens after the strike period ends?
Once the 48-hour strike period ends, O’Neill says the overtime ban — which started on Jan. 6 — will continue.
He could not provide specifics around what additional potential action could follow, only noting it would be “an escalation.”
“Clearly, we don’t have a deal now. So we’ll have to plan our next escalation. Obviously, it’s going to be an escalation, which means more than the current one,” the CUPE 4500 spokesperson explained.
When asked what his message was to transit users who feel caught in the middle, O’Neill wanted to assure customers union members “have done everything we could” to avoid this scenario.
“Our members, the main part of their job, what they do every day, is to try to make sure that there’s a service that they provide to the public and they’re very proud of what they do. So having to take this action is not an easy thing for us to do, for our members to do,” O’Neill said.
“This employer is just unwilling to deal with the issue of the wage discrepancy that exists, and we’ve had no choice.”
‘This is disappointing and frustrating. This is unfair to our customers’: TransLink CEO
TransLink CEO Kevin Quinn didn’t mince words in an update Monday afternoon.
“Coast Mountain Bus Company was working hard to reach a compromise … and prevent this all day yesterday and Saturday through mediation. But unfortunately, CMBC informs us that the union continues to demand far higher wage increases than their colleagues. This is disappointing and frustrating. This is unfair to our customers. The people of this region do not deserve to be caught in the middle of this dispute,” he said just after noon.
“Over 300,000 people rely on the bus system to get around Metro Vancouver every single day — that is a substantial amount of this region’s population that woke up this morning stranded, thousands of workers that couldn’t get to work at health-care facilities, daycare facilities, care homes, retail stores, offices, construction sites. Thousands of students that couldn’t get to post-secondary campuses and schools, thousands of extra cars on the road.”
Quinn says there will not be any impacts to SkyTrain or other transit systems in the next two days, despite some raising concerns that those could also halt.
Deficits and TransLink’s current financial climate
According to Quinn, the 13.5 per cent wage increase offered to CUPE 4500 members was accepted by all other CMBC unions in B.C.
He adds CMBC has “improved on its original offer” and addressed workload concerns but claims CUPE 4500 “still wants significantly more than any other union.”
“But I’ve got to say, now is not the time and that’s because at TransLink, we are facing a fiscal crisis. I have been transparent with the public over the last year that TransLink is facing a structural deficit of $4.6 billion over the next 10 years. We are feeling system pressures. Our system is already overcrowded. Our region is growing and it is going to get worse,” he said.
“We estimate that the ripple effect of the union’s demands on other future contracts to be in the order of $250 million. That is $250 million on top of a $4.6-billion deficit over 10 years.”
He says while TransLink has “fortunately” received provincial and federal funding “that has allowed us to stay stable to the end of 2025,” it is “not financially responsible to dig that hole any deeper.”
Quinn is urging both sides to return to the bargaining table to resolve the issue, saying “this strike has too much impact on our customers who count on us.”
He adds TransLink has been in touch with the province, adding the B.C. government is “very much on top of this file.”
Meanwhile, O’Neill says CUPE 4500’s demands are not unrealistic.
“It’s realistic and it’s fair … and it’s easy to understand that when workers from one group do the same job as they do in another group, they should be paid the same wages. So if they’re saying it’s unrealistic to be paid fairly, that’s fine. I’ll let them say that. I’m more focused on trying to get a deal at the table and I’d love for them to address our issues,” he added.
Previously, the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade (GVBoT) warned that the then-potential bus strike would have a detrimental effect on small and medium businesses.
“We’re hearing from our members that they’re significantly concerned and we are certainly expressing that on their behalf, both to the government and to TransLink, to see if they can come together to find a resolution that would be fair to all the parties,” GVBoT President and CEO Bridgitte Anderson told CityNews.
Listen live to CityNews 1130 to keep up to date with this developing story. You can also subscribe to breaking news alerts sent directly to your inbox.
