SkyTrain union tells staff their solidarity strike could start mid-day Monday

SkyTrain union informs workers their solidarity strike could start mid-day Monday

Passengers waiting for a SkyTrain Expo Line train towards downtown Vancouver during peak hours at Commercial-Broadway Station in May 2023. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

At this very late hour, the situation with the potential Metro Vancouver public transit strike starting early Monday morning remains highly fluid and fast changing.

At the time of writing, TransLink’s Coast Mountain Bus Company (CMBC) and Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) 4500 have yet to reach a tentative deal to avoid a full shutdown of bus and SeaBus services starting at 3 am Monday, January 22.

However, late Sunday, CUPE 7000 — the separate union representing over 1,000 workers on SkyTrain’s Expo and Millennium lines — issued a second internal memo to their members, indicating that they intend to join CUPE 4500 on the picket lines at the earliest legal opportunity in solidarity, if CUPE 4500 does not reach an agreement for the 180 bus operations supervisors it represents.

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“All CUPE 7000 SkyTrain members should be prepared to report for work. This might change later in the day on Monday, but at this time we don’t know when that might happen. The CUPE 7000 executive board will update you on any changes,” reads the second internal memo by CUPE 7000’s leadership late Sunday.

In a bulletin issued by TransLink at 5 pm Sunday, the public transit authority stated services on all three SkyTrain lines and the West Coast Express commuter rail will operate normally on Monday, and that CUPE 4500 currently only has the legal ability to picket outside bus facilities.

Early Sunday, CUPE 4500 filed a complaint and requested an immediate hearing with the BC Labour Relations Board (BCLRB), but the hearing was not scheduled for the day. This hearing could potentially be conducted sometime on Monday.

In the first internal memo early Sunday, CUPE 7000 told workers on SkyTrain’s Expo and Millennium lines to join CUPE 4500 on the picket lines, if CUPE 4500 members are seen picketing outside SkyTrain facilities, such as SkyTrain stations and SkyTrain’s operations and maintenance centres. These CUPE 7000 members will also receive strike pay.

Although SkyTrain’s Expo and Millennium lines will likely be operating normally on Monday morning, the situation could quickly change later in the day if or when the BCLRB makes a hearing. And if the BCLRB sides with CUPE 4500, bus and SeaBus workers would be asked to quickly move their picket lines to SkyTrain facilities, effectively triggering the involvement of CUPE 7000 workers in their strike and the full shutdown of services on the Expo and Millennium lines. These conditions and steps would need to be achieved in order for the strike of CMBC supervisors under CUPE 4500 to expand to workers with the Expo and Millennium lines under CUPE 7000.

Labour policies forbid other public transit services, operated by workers with other unions, to step up and increase their capacity to fill the void left by a shutdown of a service. In its complaint, CUPE 4500 has accused TransLink and its operating subsidiaries of preparing measures to mitigate the service impacts on bus and SeaBus passengers.

It is not immediately clear what service impacts could be seen on SkyTrain Canada Line, which is separately operated and under the BC General Services’ Union (BCGEU), and other services such as the West Coast Express.

The strike of 180 bus operations supervisors starting at 3 am Monday would last for at least 48 hours — until the morning of Wednesday. These supervisors coordinate, lead, and manage thousands of bus drivers, engineers, mechanics, and other operations and maintenance workers, who are under a different union, Unifor.

In 2023, TransLink’s subsidiaries reached a three-year contract agreement with Unifor for thousands of bus and SeaBus workers, and a five-year contract agreement with CUPE 7000 for over 1,000 SkyTrain workers on the Expo and Millennium lines.

Since the end of December 2023, workers on SkyTrain Canada Line have been without a contract with their employer, ProTransBC, a subsidiary of SNC Lavalin.

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