THE BLUE BUSES ROLL AGAIN
Tentative deal ends West Van strike
A tentative agreement was reached late Monday between the Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 134, and West Vancouver District after a one-day strike that shut down Blue Bus service throughout the day.
Union president and business manager Geoff Devlin said that picket lines are down and that bus service will resume this morning.
The deal came after talks resumed Monday afternoon in a bid to resolve the strike.
The bus drivers, without a contract since March 31, left some 18,000 riders without their usual service, after the two sides failed to come to terms in a daylong session with mediator Grant McArthur that ended Sunday night.
“This is a union that hasn’t been on strike in 100 years of transit service in West Vancouver,” said Bill Tieleman, spokesman for the union, earlier Monday.
The union, which represents 149 drivers, mechanics and service staff, was striking over what it called district demands for concessions to its benefit plan and the union’s demands that the district do something to stem the high turnover rate among the 14 Blue Bus mechanic positions. Wages weren’t at issue between the two sides, Tieleman said, with pay rates following a pattern set by the much-larger TransLink Coast Mountain Bus Company agreement.
District spokesman Jeff McDonald earlier denied the district was seeking concessions, and said the benefits issue involved new demands from the union. The Blue Bus strike had shut down service between the Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal and downtown Vancouver.
On Monday morning, New Westminster’s Amanda DuGray was initially left stranded when she took SkyTrain to a Blue Bus stop near downtown Vancouver’s Stadium Station. DuGray, on a disability pension since suffering a traumatic brain injury in 2008, was heading to Horseshoe Bay to pick up her 12-year-old daughter, Mary, from a weekend with her Sunshine Coast grandparents.
“She was coming with no phone, no way for me to connect with her,” said DuGray, adding there were no signs downtown indicating that the Blue Buses weren’t running. “I was waiting for a bus that wasn’t coming.”
The distraught mom was able to make her Horseshoe Bay ren- dezvous when shuttle driver Peter King saw her waiting downtown.
King’s independent Bowen Island Shuttle Bus does three daily morning runs from Horseshoe Bay to downtown for Bowen Island ferry and water-taxi commuters. He does three afternoon runs from downtown back to Horseshoe Bay, a service he has been running since January 2015.
On Monday morning, King picked up several people downtown seeking to get to Horseshoe Bay when he saw that they were stranded.
“There’s no signage at the bus stops to warn people (about the strike),” King said at Horseshoe Bay.
“They’re standing out there waiting. ... You would have thought they’d put a sign on the post informing people.”
Across the water from Horseshoe Bay, commuters in Langdale were shocked, annoyed and profoundly out of pocket.
Sunshine Coast resident Jeff Behrner was facing an extra $80 in ferry fares, parking and gas for each day he is forced to drive to Vancouver for work.
“I go in a couple of days a week, but this strike is news to me. I didn’t even know it was happening,” said Behrner, an English language instructor at Simon Fraser University. “I catch the 6:20 ferry in the morning, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and hop on the 257 (Vancouver Express) bus right to work. It’s really smooth usually.”
Taxi fare from Horseshoe Bay to downtown Vancouver is roughly $50.
Walk-on passenger John Wilson was unable to work at all until the bus strike was over. “I moved to the Sunshine Coast because I couldn’t afford to buy a home (in Metro Vancouver), but I need the bus to get to my job sites,” said Wilson, a parttime traffic counter who works at locations all over the Lower Mainland. “I can’t afford to get a cab.”
There were extra cars in line for the 10:20 a.m. ferry to Horseshoe Bay on Monday, some being driven by people who were aware of the strike but resigned to the extra expense of driving onto the ferry.
The round-trip fare for a typical car is $54, plus $16 for each adult. Some travellers paid an extra $18 to reserve a spot on the ferry back to Langdale at the end of the day, to ensure they make it home.
Other passengers caught unaware planned to walk around the ferry during the voyage, hoping to see someone they knew on-board to scrounge a ride into the city.
This is a union that hasn’t been on strike in 100 years of transit service in West Vancouver. BILL TIELEMAN, union spokesman