Simon South

Everyone by now knows the good news: On Saturday members of Local 1587 voted 80% in favour of approving a tentative agreement with Miller Transit, effectively bringing the 97-day strike to an end. (This means we beat the 94-day strike in Vancouver in 1984, but not the 128-day one there in 2001.)

Details of service resumption are starting to emerge. Here’s what we know:

• Viva service on all lines will resume this Saturday, February 4th.
• Route 98 will run again starting one day later, February 5th.
• Route 55 will run starting February 12th.

No date has been announced for the southeast division, but I expect there’ll be service again there by this weekend or early next week.

Update: Only Viva Blue and Purple will be operating this Saturday. Routes 98 and 55 will both be operating on the 4th, as the Region had originally announced. Southeast-division routes start up again this Saturday and Monday. See the Region’s service-resumption page for details on which routes are resuming when.

A Month of YRFree

The Region is standing by their promise of free bus service once the strike is over and say they’ll be releasing the details of their plan later this week.

Previously there was talk of a free month of service, but I think the Region’s going to surprise us by announcing they’re extending that period. There ought to be the money to allow it, considering the strike stretched on more than five weeks past their original announcement. And their latest announcement makes no reference to a free month, instead promising a minimum one month of free service. I bet we’ll see free—well, fareless—transit in the region for six weeks or longer.

A separate question is when the free period will start. It probably won’t be tomorrow, the first day of February, since bus passes for the month have already been sold and most services won’t be running for at least a few more days. Despite what I speculated earlier I doubt it’ll start mid-month, either; that’d just be too confusing for people. So perhaps March is a more likely target.

The problem with this is that most routes in the north division might still not be running then. TOK has until April 29th to finish putting buses on the road—not that it’s expected to take that long, but it conceivably might. So the easiest and most equitable thing would be for the Region to start the free-service period on the first of May.

I don’t really think the Region is going to make us wait that long, though. We should know how they’re addressing all this within a few days.

Update: We didn’t have to wait long. Shortly after I posted this the Region announced two months of free transit service, starting this Saturday, February 4th, and lasting through to March 31st. February bus passes will be honoured in April or can be returned to YRT for a refund.

We are definitely in the final days of the strike now. Yesterday, ATU Local 113 members approved the tentative agreement reached with Veolia on Tuesday; Regional Council approved a new contract with TOK Transit Ltd., a subsidiary of Tokmakjian, as First Canada’s replacement to provide transit service in the north division; and Local 1587 announced it has reached a tentative agreement with its employer, Miller Transit, on which members are expected to vote this Saturday.

Strictly speaking, the strike won’t be over unless that vote passes. However, as before, I have no doubt it will. All the pieces are falling into place for transit service to start up again.

Already the Region has announced Viva service will resume February 4th. Service in the north division is being phased in over time in as TOK gets up and running, but the latest is that we can expect service on route 98 starting February 5th with route 55 to resume February 12th. We don’t know yet when buses in the southeast division might be rolling again, but it seems reasonable to think if the agreement is ratified this Saturday we might see service there by February 4th as well.

That’s about all the information that’s been released so far. We don’t know yet anything beyond a few details of the agreement between Local 113 and Veolia, and nothing has been said about the tentative deal between Local 1587 and Miller. Hopefully some of this will become known over the next week.

By now I expect most people will have heard the good news: A tentative agreement was reached last night between Local 113 and Veolia. This doesn’t mean the strike is over, but if the agreement is ratified by the membership in a vote tomorrow we could see Viva service resume on February 4th.

Note this agreement only relates to Viva service. We won’t know until tomorrow’s Council meeting what the Region’s plans are for restoring service in the north division, and there is no word yet of an agreement between Local 1587 and Miller for the southeast division—although as I’ve said many times, I expect if one local returns to work the other will follow soon thereafter.

As a result I’m pretty sure we’re seeing the end of the strike play out right now. I have no doubt Local 113 members will approve the agreement tomorrow. The union leaders are recommending they vote yes, and Local president Bob Kinnear has been emphatic lately that he has the members on his side. But the drivers must also be aware there’s more at stake this time around. As Abdurahman Ibrahim wrote on Facebook yesterday:

If they reject this coming offer, chances are the contract between York BRT and York Region will be terminated and the viva workers will likely be out of work. So it’s decide to give up this strike or sign the pink slip and be future endeavored.

I think there’s a lot of truth to that.

Incidentally, it’s just this sort of pressure that has both locals appearing in front of the Ontario Labour Relations Board today. They’re protesting the timing of the Region’s dismissal of First Canada, which happened just two days before last week’s vote by Local 113 on an offer from Veolia. Although the members voted to reject that offer, the decision was not as unanimous as it had been in Local 1587′s rejection of Miller’s offer the week prior. And that surprised me considering Local 113 appears to be the more militant of the two.

Simultaneously, the Region is seeking redress for what it claims are violations of the injunction it won last month to place limits on the union’s picketing activity. To what extent these two things are related, I’m not sure. But even though an agreement between the union and the contractors is drawing near, the union and the Region are continuing to spar through the legal system.

Today is day 92 of the transit strike in York Region, now in the start of its fourteenth week.

I’m happy to say that for once, there seems to be good news arriving from every direction. As David Fleischer wrote this morning, this stands to be the most eventful week of the entire dispute. Here’s what’s going on:

• On Friday, ATU Local 1587 and Miller resumed negotiations following a request from a provincial mediator. While previous talks had fallen apart quickly, this time the two parties spent the whole day meeting and negotiations are continuing today. Local 1587 president Ray Doyle has characterized the discussions as positive; he’s also said he hopes a deal might be reached today.

• Also today, Local 113 is meeting with its employer, Veolia. There’s been no word yet on how these talks are proceeding, which actually suggests they are going well—the union has said in the past it will not comment on negotiations until either a deal is reached or talks break down.

  This is a promising development, not only because the two parties are talking again but because I expect that neither local will return to work until both do. The fact Local 113 is putting itself in a position to accept an offer lends weight to Mr. Doyle’s suggestion that a resolution could be at hand. As still further evidence, there was apparently no picketing from the striking drivers this morning, a show of good faith and respect for the process on their part.

• This Wednesday is the new deadline for the two remaining contractors, Miller and Veolia, to submit to the Region their plan as to how they intend to restore partial transit service while the strike is underway. (Apparently Veolia already submitted theirs last week.) While the Region will need some time to review the proposals it seems we could know soon how the situation is going to be improved for riders.

• On Thursday, Regional Council will meet to vote on the new contract for operating the north division, the responsibility recently taken away from First Canada. If the vote passes, the way should be clear for the Region to restore service along route 98 on February 5th as it has planned, with additional routes following that.

Considering all this, I am cautiously optimistic we are now entering the endgame of the dispute, a full thirteen weeks after it began. And it seems all it took was the Region finally flashing a bit of its power.

What’s Being Discussed?

One thing I’m very curious about is what’s actually being talked about in the negotiations going on between each local and its employer. Previously the two sides seemed to be at a complete impasse, my impression being that the union was demanding greater total compensation for its members while the contractors were adamant about containing their labour costs.

Suddenly this impasse seems to have cleared, at least between Local 1587 and Miller. What’s changed? My first thought was that one side or the other has started to give in—either the union is saying it will now accept a compromise on some front, or the contractor has agreed to expand its budget for labour. The problem with this idea is that even now, neither side seems to have much incentive to budge.

As a commentor named Some1 pointed out a while back, there are not many companies either equipped to provide transit service here or interested in doing so, making Miller’s and Veolia’s position fairly secure. On top of this, the Region actually rents garage space for some of its buses from Miller, giving that company additional leverage. So I doubt the contractors are feeling all that intimidated right now, even after having watched First Canada get the axe.

However, the union has now spent so much time on strike it really needs a big win to save face publicly and with its members. It has almost nothing to lose by continuing to hold out for the best deal it can possibly get—the opportunity has long since passed for it to accept a modest gain and rationalize it as a stepping-stone for the future. Speaking of which, it will be years before the contract renewals line up in such a way that the union has as much leverage as it had in October to make demands. So it’s basically now-or-never for the two locals.

Of course, more cynical interpretations are possible. Perhaps the contractors really have been as selfish and greedy as the union has said, and they are now realizing they have no choice but to loosen their purse strings. Or perhaps the union really has been avoiding useful negotiation by playing a game of move-the-goalposts, and they now realize they are going to have to begin taking the process seriously.

We should know the outcome within a few days.

Today is day 87 of the transit strike here in York Region. We’re now in the middle of week 13, which has already seen two important events.

ATU Local 113 Rejects Veolia’s Offer

Although this was so widely expected it hardly qualifies as news, Local 113 members voted yesterday to reject Veolia’s latest offer. This is the vote Veolia requested through the Ontario Labour Relations Board, as they had the right to do, and the counterpart of sorts to the vote by Local 1587 members on the sixth.

The real news came earlier in the week.

The Region Fires First Canada

On Monday the Region announced it has terminated its contract with First Canada, which previously operated bus routes in the northern division (routes north of Bernard Avenue). It also announced it will be hiring a new contractor to take First Canada’s place and plans to restore service on route 98 on February 5th, with other routes to follow. (For people not familiar with our transit system, the 98 is another critical route that operates on Yonge Street and connects the southern part of Richmond Hill to its north and to other municipalities in the region, including Aurora and Newmarket.)

So now I have the answer to my question about whether the Region would threaten the contractors with termination of their contracts. I was surprised to hear the news as I figured this was what the Region was least likely to do. Now we know it means business.

The government clearly intends this as a warning to the other two contractors as well, both of whom it has asked to deliver a detailed plan by this Friday of how they might restore transit service elsewhere while the strike continues.

It appears the Region already has a replacement in mind for First Canada, considering it is announcing the resumption of service even though Council has yet to approve a new contract. Whom could it be? David Fleischer suggests Tokmakjian/Can-Ar as a possibility. Internet provocateur Forrest Grump thinks it could be Miller, despite their ongoing dispute with Local 1587, due to their experience and presence in the Region. We’ll have to wait until the 26th to know for sure.

So What Does It Mean?

Judging from the comments on news stories quite a few people are assuming this means the strike is over for the Local 1587 members previously employed by First Canada, since those jobs simply don’t exist anymore. Some are also assuming the Region can now start fresh with a different contractor for the north division, one that won’t be obligated to hire back the former drivers or deal with the union at all.

It looks like this is, at most, only partially true. Under Canadian law, when one contractor is replaced with another the union’s bargaining rights normally carry over. So I don’t think it’s true that whichever contractor the Region has in mind to take over the north division is automatically free and clear of the union.

However, it also appears the new contractor won’t be obligated to hire back the former drivers. From the previous link (emphasis in the original):

Although the new employer assumes responsibility for the collective agreements associated with the undertaking being sold or transferred, the number of employees receiving job offers is outside the scope of successor rights and is strictly a matter for negotiation between the two employers. Traditionally, Public Service transfers involving succession have resulted in job offers to most affected employees.

If the loss of ridership expected after nearly three months of striking means fewer runs are made, not every former employee could receive an offer. Quoted in the Toronto Star, Local 113 President Bob Kinnear acknowledges drivers are worried:

We’re cautiously optimistic that (Region Chair) Bill Fisch will begin to address the workers’ concerns and get a collective agreement, said Kinnear, although he admitted that his members couldn’t help but be shaken by the termination of York’s contract with First Canada.

The morale here has been overwhelming, but how could it not have an impact? he said.

Yesterday the Region announced it would start using the large, articulated Viva buses to service route 99 along Yonge Street, a sight that may have surprised commuters this morning. Unfortunately, despite appearances this does not mean Viva Blue service has been restored: The Viva buses will be making the same stops as the regular 99 buses, which also means they won’t be travelling north of Bernard Terminal. However, their larger size should help alleviate the overcrowding that’s plagued the 99 since the start of the strike. Also, as others have pointed out, this should make the union’s occupation antics less effective, more expensive or both.

This seemed like such a positive development I knew right away there would be lots of complaining about it—and I wasn’t disappointed. The Region’s post announcing it on Facebook was immediately pounced on by angry commenters saying it was a weak plan, that it would accomplish nothing and that it was all a cynical ploy by the government to make more money (though how, exactly, it would achieve this wasn’t spelled out). That comment thread has now grown to over 300 posts, the largest we’ve seen on that page for a while.

Wilson Lo, one of just a few other people blogging about the strike, was particularly outraged by the Region’s attempt to improve the situation for commuters. From his post this morning, Bill Fisch and York Region are an absolute joke:

With this transit strike raging into its 82nd day, the public does not need another joke from a bad excuse for a regional government and its $203,000-a-year chairperson who might as well just be a chair. At least a chair is more useful in function.

Surprisingly, though he clearly pins the blame for this recent misadventure on the York Region CEO, he is silent on what he thinks Mr. Fisch should have done differently and on what the possible consequences of a more aggressive plan might have been. Perhaps he’ll address these things in a future post.

One thing I’ve been startled to see is the amount of criticism aimed at the drivers who are commandeering the Viva buses. Again, Mr. Lo:

The drivers who are still working have had little training on these articulated VanHool buses… Did I also mention the weather forecast is calling for snow tomorrow? Now not only do these drivers have to manage driving a totally new bus, but also manage it in poor driving conditions. I can only imagine how much trouble the uphill southbound Yonge south of Clark is going to be.

Even their brothers and sisters in the union seem to have little faith in their ability. Consider this comment on Facebook yesterday from Kathy Breen, one of the drivers on strike:

I certainly wouldn’t board any of these buses.With 2 hours training for these YRT drivers,when VIVA drivers are properly trained in them for weeks…need I say more! Safety obviously isn’t in the public’s best interest. Maybe a quick solution but NOT a safe one in my opinion.

A surprising position considering union members have often cited their allegedly high level of skill to defend the wage increases they’re demanding. (For anyone actually concerned about a possible safety issue, CityNews.ca informs us the drivers are being accompanied by driving instructors today.)

Most interesting to me, though, is the political shift hinted at by the Region’s announcement.

A Division in the Ranks?

Generally, the Region has maintained a very hands-off attitude throughout the strike, insisting the dispute is solely between the contractors and the union and that it will not intervene.

With yesterday’s announcement, however, it seems this might be changing. The wording of the announcement clearly suggests the Region is losing faith in the bargaining process—or perhaps in the contractors themselves—and that it intends to start becoming more involved, perhaps to finally fend off criticism that it is doing nothing while transit users suffer. From the announcement:

The unions and contractors have had ample time to negotiate a fair agreement, said Chairman Fisch. We are taking measures to restore as much service as possible, placing our riders at the forefront by putting larger buses in service, getting our commuters out of the cold and where they need to go.

Of particular note is the three-point list of actions the Region is taking to provide as much service as possible. In addition to placing Viva buses on route 99, it seems the Region plans to place additional pressure on the contractors to find ways of restoring service without running afoul of Canada’s labour laws. But the third point really stands out to me:

Further examine the terms and conditions of our contracts with York BRT Services, Miller Transit and First Canada, with a specific focus on additional remedies to improve transit service

It’s hard not to interpret this as a veiled threat directed at the contractors: Find a way to move forward in the dispute, or we’ll find a way to… well, do what, exactly? Is it possible the Region is considering how it might sever the contracts, as the union is demanding? Perhaps it is simply threatening to find other ways it can lean on the contractors, punishing them through the legal system if they’re not able to get productive negotiations going. But considering how well-entrenched both sides are now, I can’t think what the contractors might do that wouldn’t involve acceding to the union’s demands. And while many people believe that’s the right thing to do anyway, I can’t see it as being in the region’s long-term interest.

While the union has often accused the Region of colluding with the contractors, the Region now seems prepared to drive a wedge in that relationship and establish a position of its own in the dispute. This is arguably a good thing, but I have to wonder what is motivating it. I’d hate to believe councillors are starting to give in to the pressure the union is placing on them, in the media and through its picketing efforts. We know where that leads.

In the meantime, if you experienced the commute this morning on the 99 route, I hope you’ll post a comment below and tell us what the experience was like. Do you think this was a good move by the Region?

Today is day 79 in week 12 of the York Region transit strike. (While I’m sure no one expected the strike to last this long, we’re actually still some distance away from setting a record. We’re creeping up on the 94-day transit strike in Vancouver in 1984, but are still a ways behind the 128-day strike there in 2001 and of course the nine-month strike in Quebec City in 1979.)

By now everyone knows the members of ATU Local 1587 voted down the last offer from Miller Transit on Friday, 196 to 38. Ninety-two percent of the membership voted, so clearly I was wrong in thinking the union leaders didn’t actually have the membership on their side. Members of Local 113 won’t be voting on the latest offer from Veolia until the 17th (I was also mistaken on that date in my last post), but I think we can safely assume that offer will be rejected, too.

It’s hard for me to imagine what’s going to change at this point to bring the strike to an end.

• The union would like to dismantle the public-private partnership model used in the Region, so I think it’s unlikely it will agree to any offer from a contractor—especially at this point, after more than eleven weeks of striking, when it desperately needs to score a win to make the sacrifice appear to have been worthwhile. (I’m pretty sure the specific details of the contracts being negotiated are immaterial at this point, though gains there—such as the additional health-care premium subsidy Local 113 appears to be holding out for—may end up being what the union leaders settle for to save face.) For the same reason, it’ll continue to beat the drum for arbitration as a neutral way to settle the dispute, which even were it not to bring any gains for union members would still establish in people’s minds the fiction that private contractors just can’t be dealt with.

• The Region, of course, wants to maintain its sovereignty and defend the public-private model, and will resist doing anything that would hand over power to the union. (Union supporters like to point out York Region CEO Bill Fisch was never elected by the people to run the transit system, but we should remember the same is true of the Local presidents, Bob Kinnear and Ray Doyle, both of whom want to refashion the system to their liking.)

• The private contractors naturally want to preserve as much of their profit from the Region as they can, as they have already agreed to the maximum amount of revenue they can expect from taxpayers. They will not operate services here at a loss, so there is naturally a certain point past which they will not make further concessions to the workers. (People in favour of a completely public model complain about the huge tax subsidies poured into transit in the Region currently, but if it is impossible for private contractors to operate services here at a profit, why should anyone expect the government to be able to?)

Meanwhile, the taxpayers and transit users—the people actually funding the entire dispute—remain essentially powerless, while the union adds insult to injury by continuing to picket the bus terminals and the buses themselves every morning.

Despite my prediction on Tuesday it turns out there is news to write about in the York Region transit strike. Potentially good news, too.

A ruling from the Ontario Labour Relations Board is forcing a vote on the latest offer from two of the contractors, Miller and Veolia, by members of the striking ATU locals tomorrow. If, as I’d presumed, union leaders have been purposefully keeping their membership from voting on offers (despite their posturing to the contrary), this has foiled their plan. Should the membership approve these offers, the strike would effectively be over. (Even if only one offer were approved, I expect this would weaken the union’s position enough to precipitate a quick end to the strike generally.)

The sentiment among the drivers seems to have shifted a few times. Comments I saw around the Web in early December gave me the impression a growing number were tiring of the strike and would have accepted the latest offers had they been given the chance to do so. Since the union leaders were no closer to accomplishing their political goals than they’d been at the start I expected they’d do everything they could to prevent a vote from happening—which the headlines seemed to confirm. My initial thought when I heard the contractors had managed to force a vote was that we were surely entering the endgame of the dispute.

Now, I’m not so certain. Most people seem to believe the offers will not be approved. Comments from drivers around the Web have regained their confrontational tone; it’s been weeks since I saw any calling out for a chance to vote. This could be simply the result of increased discipline from union leaders, although I wonder what effect attrition may have had on the composition of the membership. We’re told many drivers have given up waiting for a resolution to the strike and found work elsewhere. Almost by definition, the ones who are left will be those best able to wait out a lengthy strike and most in support of the union’s political ambitions. If these people now represent a majority of the locals’ membership, there’s little hope of seeing any contractor offer approved by vote.

However, we’ll have to wait to see what happens. Michael Suddard pointed out to me the Viva strike in 2008 was ended by a vote from the membership on an offer they’d already seen (the same offer that led them to strike, apparently). It’s possible the same thing could happen here. We should know soon.

Happy new year! I hope 2012 is off to a good start for you and you were able to make a smooth transition back to work this morning.

Of course, anyone who relies on public transit in York Region for their commute would have been disappointed to discover the transit strike is still going on. We are now on day 72 of limited transit service and, although there has been a fair bit of activity in the last couple of weeks, it seems a resolution to the strike is no closer to arriving than it was at the start.

Here’s a quick rundown of what’s happened since my last post about the strike:

• On December 15th the Region announced it would use the tax money saved by keeping the buses parked to provide a month of free transit whenever service resumes. Although some people questioned whether this was the best use of the money, it occurred to me this has the benefit of providing a buffer between passengers and drivers once they are back on the job—probably a good thing considering the anger many passengers will be feeling.

• Shortly before Christmas there were two meetings between contractors and the union locals. On the 21st, First Transit met with Local 1587; on the 23rd, Veolia met with Local 113. Neither meeting was productive, with (predictably) each side accusing the other of not cooperating.

• Also shortly before Christmas, the union announced it would be taking a break from picketing over the holidays. I’m sure I saw a headline to that effect, though I can’t find a source now. Perhaps the announcement was retracted because at the same time the Region announced it would seek an injunction from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice against practices it described as unlawful picketing by union members.

  The timing was impeccable, as it would appear the picketing ended as soon as the Region sought an injunction—as though the picketing had been illegal all along, and the Region brought an end to it. That’s not true. However, the Superior Court did approve the injunction, imposing guidelines on how union members will be allowed to picket at transit terminals and elsewhere.

• On January 1st higher transit fares came into effect, raising the adult cash fare by twenty-five cents to $3.50. It should be noted the fare raise was approved by Council before the union went on strike, though this is little comfort for disgruntled riders who see prices going up while the available service goes down.

• First Transit announced that as a result of the strike it will be temporarily laying off some of its administrative staff effective today. Much is said about the needs of the drivers, but we should remember the private companies to which transit operations are contracted are themselves staffed by ordinary workers who are trying to hold down a job and provide for their family and they, too, are affected by the strike.

I’ll have more to say about these things over the next week or so. I doubt there’ll be much other strike-related news to write about, since each of the sides in the dispute seems to be more deeply entrenched than ever. None of them appears to have much incentive to back down at this point. It feels like we’re simply waiting to see who blinks first.