SkyTrain and West Coast Express to operate normally on Monday during strike: TransLink

SkyTrain and West Coast Express to operate normally on Monday during transit strike: TransLink

SkyTrain Inlet Centre Station. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

Services on all three SkyTrain lines and the West Coast Express commuter rail will operate normally at least on Monday, January 22, according to a bulletin issued by TransLink at 5 pm Sunday.

This is a direct response to Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) 7000’s internal memo to its members — over 1,000 workers on SkyTrain’s Expo and Millennium lines employed with TransLink’s BC Rapid Transit Company (BCRTC) — on Sunday morning, asking their members to join the striking CUPE 4500 members, based on CUPE 4500’s plans to have their members picket outside SkyTrain facilities. This would have resulted in a full shutdown of SkyTrain’s Expo and Millennium lines.

However, TransLink now states that SkyTrain Expo Line, SkyTrain Millennium Line, and SkyTrain Canada Line will continue to operate normally, as will West Coast Express, West Vancouver Blue Bus, and HandyDART.

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“At this time, CUPE Local 4500 can only legally picket bus and SeaBus,” reads TransLink’s bulletin late Sunday afternoon.

“We will communicate the best we can to customers of any impact to service as they are known.

Beginning at 3 am Monday, if a deal is not reached in these final hours of bargaining, TransLink’s bus and SeaBus services operated by Coast Mountain Bus Company will fully shut down due to a walkout of 180 bus operations supervisors, who are separately represented by CUPE 4500.

A decision to engage in a full walkout could come as late as 3 am Monday. If the strike escalation occurs, the shutdown of bus and SeaBus services will continue for at least 48 hours — until at least Wednesday morning.

Earlier Sunday, in their internal memo to members, CUPE 7000 accused TransLink administration, BCRTC, West Coast Express, and ProTransBC (SkyTrain Canada Line) of “taking steps to reduce the [strike] impact” on bus and SeaBus passengers. CUPE 7000 stated CUPE 4500 had filed a formal complaint and requested an “immediate hearing” with the BC Labour Relations Board (BCLRB), but no hearing was scheduled before the end of the day.

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. CUPE 4500 has accused TransLink and its operating subsidiaries of preparing measures to mitigate the service impacts on bus and SeaBus passengers.

In a second internal memo late Sunday, CUPE 7000 told their members — workers on SkyTrain’s Expo and Millennium lines — that they should be prepared to report to work on Monday. But this could change later in the day on Monday, if the BCLRB schedules a hearing mid-day and sides with CUPE 4500.

“Until the Labour Board grants this permission, we don’t expect CUPE 4500’s picket lines at SkyTrain,” reads the second internal memo issued late Sunday.

“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.”

If the BCLRB sides with CUPE 4500 in a future hearing, the bus operations supervisors would potentially be in a legal position to picket at additional sites — not just bus and SeaBus facilities — such as SkyTrain stations and SkyTrain operations and maintenance centres. This would then shut down services on the Expo and Millennium lines as CUPE 7000 members, the employees of the Expo and Millennium lines, have been told to not cross picket lines and instead join the strike with strike pay.

The 180 bus operations supervisors under CUPE 4500 oversee thousands of bus drivers, engineers, mechanics, and other operations and maintenance workers for the bus and SeaBus systems.

CUPE 4500 states it is at odds with working conditions, compensation, and CMBC’s “measures to address unmanageable workloads.”

“CUPE 4500 has been waiting over four weeks for Coast Mountain to respond to our latest proposal. Our patience for Coast Mountain to take bargaining and our issues seriously has been exhausted. Our members deserve a fair deal,” said CUPE 4500 spokesperson Liam O’Neill at a press conference last Thursday morning.

“We regret the disruptions passengers will be experiencing, but we are out of options. Unless Coast Mountain commits to ensure transit supervisors get the same wages as others doing similar work, and take our workload issues seriously, we are left with no choice.”

In response, CMBC has maintained that its main sticking point in the negotiations is CUPE 4500’s compensation request beyond what was recently offered to other employees. CUPE 4500 is asking for wage increases of 20% to 25% over the three-year life of the contract, but CMBC has offered 13.5% and 24.5%. CMBC has provided a full breakdown of the existing wages of bus operations supervisors, the proposed wages by the employer, and the request by CUPE 4500.

“It’s disappointing that the union representing approximately 180 transit supervisors is threatening to disrupt the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who depend on the bus and SeaBus each day over a wage dispute,” said Michael McDaniel, the president and general manager of CMBC, in a statement last Thursday.

“We urge the union to immediately end their job action and return to the bargaining table with realistic expectations. SkyTrain. This would shut down all SkyTrain services.”

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.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated with new commentary from CUPE 7000 based on their second internal memo issued late Sunday.

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