TransLink could now be on the road to labour unrest

If TransLink continues on its current downward spiral, eerily retracing the disastrous events of 2001, Lower Mainland transit riders and businesses might soon find themselves embroiled in a transit strike.

There are worrisome signs in the “efficiency review” released earlier this year by TransLink Commissioner Martin Crilly that a confrontation with TransLink unions, whose contracts have already expired, may be the next act in the transit agency’s continuing drama.The 123-day marathon strike of 2001 was ended only by legislation, drafted by the newly elected government of Premier Gordon Campbell. That bill imposed a mediated settlement already accepted by the bus drivers union but rejected by Coast Mountain Bus.

The political and financial crisis now shaking TransLink, forcing cancellation of service improvements, management restructuring and system-wide cost-cutting, has thus far repeated the 2001 storyline with depressing accuracy.

First there were the high level negotiations between Victoria and Metro municipalities about funding options, with a weak, end-of-term provincial administration promising to act on municipal wishes.

In 2001, it was Ujjal Dosanjh’s near-dead NDP administration that rejected a vehicle levy. This time, it was Christy Clark’s Liberals.

Then came the realization that current budgets were based on funding that would not arrive. In 2001, it was the vehicle levy; this time, it was the fare increase approved by the mayors in 2010 but rejected by Crilly last month.

The result on both occasions: cancellation of planned spending, cost reductions and, inevitably, service cuts.

Then, Act 3: in 2001, TransLink’s unions not only sought pay increases, they rejected concessions, particularly a Coast Mountain Bus demand to allow part-time bus drivers. The strike was on.

Crilly’s consultants, who have held senior management roles at TransLink in the past, told the commissioner TransLink might reap $35 million to $45 million in longer-term savings with tighter scheduling and efforts to “modernize work rules, contract out, etc.”

There could hardly be a better recipe for a confrontation with the unions than an attack on work rules and a drive to contract out.

Coast Mountain will have to make the case that there’s more work to do on this front, particularly given the price paid in 2001.

Transit workers remain among the most highly unionized sector across North America, for simple reasons. Their work usually requires judgment, careful training and good customer service skills, but is relatively modestly paid and offers few avenues for promotion or career development.

Bus driving requires deep reservoirs of patience to manage schedules, traffic congestion and crush loads of passengers, along with the ever-present threat of violent assault.

Drivers represented by Canadian Autoworkers Local 111 have long been warning TransLink that more service – not less – is required to meet the surging ridership pressures across the region. They know, better than most, that cost pressures are driven more by the burden of serving low-density suburbs in the sprawling TransLink service area – one of the largest in North America – than they are by work rules.

In 2001, TransLink’s leadership decided an assault on the collective agreement was the way to go. Staff even reported to the board that the agency would save money during a strike by forgoing wages to striking workers. But the local economy took a beating.

In the end, the demands of small businesses for an end to the debacle forced the government to act. The law passed on a hot August evening, but it was several years before TransLink’s ridership and public approval numbers recovered.

Let’s not do that again. •