SkyTrain workers who handle the Expo and Millennium Lines have voted overwhelmingly in favour of a strike mandate.
Members of CUPE Local 7000 voted 95% in support of approving job action if the union cannot come to an agreement with its employer, BC Rapid Transit Company, next week during mediation, according to ballot results released March 24.
The union represents about 530 workers employed as everything from SkyTrain attendants to control operators.
"Job action could start in smaller forms…we could do overtime bands, and protests, and leafleting campaigns and so forth," said union spokeswoman Annaliese Hunt.
"If it came as a last resort and we withdrew our services, it would mean a full stoppage of the SkyTrain system. It would be impossible for management to run the system without the hundreds of members that keep it running."
Any job action would not affect service on the Canada Line, which runs between Richmond and Vancouver.
Hunt said the two sticking points in negotiations surround retirement benefits for future hires and employees' sick plan benefits.
Commuters travelling throughout Vancouver and its suburbs made more than 50 million trips in 2012 on the Expo and Millennium Lines, according to a report from the Metro Vancouver regional district.
