Spate of HSR driver firings spurs debate over cameras on buses

The city has fired six HSR drivers in recent months including two allegedly caught on camera for fighting with a rider and peeing in public, respectively.

The union is grieving the latest three terminations — and additionally, the contentious use of newly installed bus cameras for discipline of operators, said ATU Local 107 vice-president Dee Osborne.

The terminations add to the tension between drivers and a HSR management group that has struggled with a record number of no-show buses in recent months. The city has blamed a 19 per cent driver absenteeism rate, while the union has pointed to “chronic” understaffing and called for top managers to be fired.

Osborne said she cannot talk about the incidents that prompted the latest firings, which have been grieved, because the details are potential evidence in any arbitration. “What I can say is the city is refusing to mediate these (three) terminations. They seem to feel it’s cut-and-dried. We disagree.”

Osborne added three earlier terminations dating back as far as December went through mediation.

Spokesperson Jacqueline Durlov said the city won’t comment on individual personnel matters.

But The Spectator has separately learned from city sources that two of the most recent firing offences involved, in one case, an altercation with a passenger and, in the other, a driver spotted by a nearby resident peeing off, or near, a bus at the end of a route.

The use of on-bus cameras for discipline is quickly becoming a “contentious issue,” said Osborne, especially given the union pushed for the technology to be used to help protect against a trend of assaults on drivers.

The Spectator reported in 2014 on a near-doubling of annual assaults on drivers to around 40. The incidents included spitting and thrown coffee, but also a driver struck with a steel coil and another pulled off a bus and swarmed by a group of teens.

The city spent $1.7 million installing between eight and 11 cameras on each bus, depending on size, in November. The cameras face both in and out, enabling recording of incidents inside the bus as well as road collisions.

The city has said there is no “real-time monitoring” of the footage, which is erased after 72 hours.

Osborne said the union believes the footage should be used primarily for “safety and security” and added there is ongoing disagreement over how, or if, the cameras should be used for discipline of drivers.

By email, Durlov said the “primary use” of the cameras is to improve security for “customers, bus operators and equipment.” But she added other uses “may be considered on a case-by-case basis.”

The city is in the midst of a driver hiring spree to try to cut down on no-show buses that reached a peak of 23 per day last fall. It is also trying to address long-standing operator complaints about a lack of time for bathroom breaks and washroom facilities at the end of routes — sometimes, with portable toilets.