As the Sea to Sky transit strike lumbers past the two-month mark, some commuters are still expressing solidarity with the workers, even as they wrestle with the prospect of limited transportation options.
Isla Robertson is one of those people. She also started a petition in support of striking workers, gathering signatures throughout the corridor, including in Squamish.
Robertson said that as a service worker with no personal vehicle of her own, it’s been a challenge to adapt to the new reality.
She moved to the Whistler area in part because the transit system suited her lifestyle, and provided relatively easy access to amenities, as well as an efficient way to get to work.
“My first few weeks in town, I realized, you know, the transit system is so good, and the buses are so reliable, that this would be a good fit for me,” Robertson said.
As a service worker, she hasn’t had the luxury of being able to work from home, and has needed to be physically present at her job.
“So I live in Whistler…in Creekside, actually, about a five-minute drive south of the village,” said Robertson. “Both of my part-time jobs are in the main village. So I take the bus. I don’t have a driver’s licence. I don’t have a car. So I’ve been pretty severely impacted by the bus strike.”
She also doesn’t have the cash to spring for a vehicle, so public transit has been a mainstay of her lifestyle.
Robertson said the absence of public transit puts her in a less-than-ideal situation.
She has to carpool or take a taxi to work every day, the latter of which is a significantly pricier option. Luckily, she said, she makes more than minimum wage, but she noted that younger workers earning about $15 an hour essentially have to sacrifice at least one hour’s worth of work just to show up for the job.
Missing work is not an option for herself and others due to financial realities.
However, while Robertson acknowledges the inconvenience that the transit strike has caused, she is stalwart in her support for transit workers.
“No matter what the inconvenience is, I 100% Support the drivers,” she said.
Her online petition has gained over 2,100 signatures. It calls on the employer of Sea to Sky transit workers, PWTransit, to give workers a fair deal.
PWTransit is contracted out by BC Transit to run transit in the Sea to Sky Corridor.
“I had no idea that they were paid less than the Vancouver bus drivers, which I thought was absurd. Absolutely ridiculous. I couldn’t believe it. So I started the petition,” Robertson said.
Speaking on behalf of petitioners, she added, “I believe our message has been clear that we are okay to withstand any minor inconvenience. And we are also at the same time kind of shocked that a company would treat their drivers so poorly.”
PWTransit did not reply to a request for comment before press deadline.
Gavin McGarrigle, western regional director of Unifor, said that in the middle of March, PWTransit had put forward an offer that, for the most part, was accepted by the union.
“Our committee agreed to accept the entire offer of the employer [on] March 17 — except for wages. That was one area we couldn’t agree on,” said McGarrigle. “So we said, look, let’s not quibble about everything else. We’re okay with what you’ve put forward there. And, you know, as a compromise, we think the issue of wages is the last thing to be done.”
He said the issue of wages could be handled at a later time, but everything else appeared acceptable to the union.
This involved sticking points such as pension, benefits and contract language.
“We said, ‘Fine. We’ll agree to all of it, except wages,’” he said. “We need to see a roadmap to parity on the wages. And they made it clear there was no roadmap coming. And they were offended that we took most of their offer, but not all of it.”
By McGarrigle’s account, the employer then withdrew its offer, and announced it was interested in going into binding arbitration.
The two have been in deadlock since then.
“We could have looked at perhaps having an arbitrator rule on that one issue [of wages], but not going back to Square 1 and trying to, you know, have an arbitrator determine our entire collective agreement after we’ve been on strike for two months,” he said.
According to McGarrigle, there is still a $3 difference in the employer’s proposal for hourly pay between Sea to Sky drivers and Coast Mountain Bus Company drivers.
Unifor representatives have previously said that the gaps between Sea to Sky and Metro Vancouver transit workers are $2.60 per hour for drivers and $6 per hour for cleaners.
That doesn’t include the gap in benefits and pension. About one-third of Sea to Sky transit workers don’t have benefits, while no workers here have pensions.
In February, Unifor reported that drivers in the Sea to Sky are currently making $31.92 per hour, while cleaners make $22.19.
Workers have complained that the cost of living in the Vancouver and Victoria area is similar to the Sea to Sky, yet local workers are making less.
There were still picketers gathered outside the Squamish Transit building on April 4 in the middle of a rainy day.
The workers were huddled by a fire under a shelter that was adorned with Unifor flags.
One of the workers, Harjit Randhawa, identified himself as the second-most senior employee for the Squamish division of PWTransit.
The driver said he’d been with the company for about 25 years.
“We are very determined...And we are asking for a very fair deal,” said Randhawa.
“If you look at the rate around here, the cost of living is very high, right?...I’m working for 25 years. I don’t have any pension plan. And we do have some benefits, but my other brothers have not had any benefits…And I want everything united because we work all close to each other.”
