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Council urges TransLink to help end bus strike

TransLink should help end the Lower Mainlkand's 11-week old transit strike, Richmond council said Monday.

While councillors were reluctant to wade into the dispute and make any recommendations about the issues of contracting out and part-time, they did say TransLink should be part of negotiations.

"Shouldn't TransLink be a part of that?" Coun. Malcolm Brodie said.

TransLink chair George Puil has said TransLink has no legal authority over the labour dispute that has shut down Greater Vancouver bus and SeaBus service.

"I deplore the fact that people can't get to their jobs," Puil said, but repeated negotiations are the responsibility of Coast Mountain Bus Company, a TransLink subsidiary.

But the transit union said TransLink has been shirking its responsibility by not addressing the dispute between bus drivers and mechanics. Instead, that power has been left with Coast Mountain, which has "no assets, no property, no capital and no buses," Canadian Auto Workers' Local 111 vice-president Paul Bains said.

Bains supported his argument by citing the Greater Vancouver Transportation Authority Act, which authorizes TransLink to manage the regional transportation system.

"According to the act, TransLink must manage the affairs, appoint members to, and review and approve the operating budget of subsidiaries," Bains told Richmond council Monday.

"Here we are at day 72 of the transit strike, and the end is nowhere in sight. TransLink wants to escape responsibility for this impasse by hiding behind the subsidiary of (Coast Mountain)," Bains said.

Mediator Vince Ready was expected to make recommendations this week or next for a possible resolution to the strike.

The union's Rick Yelland said the two sticking points, part-time workers and contracting out, could be removed from the table and referred to a "higher level committee."

This would get the buses back on the road while cooler heads deal with those issues, he said.

"We'd like to work without handcuffs to decide what's best," he said.

Richmond council will send letters to TransLink, Coast Mountain and the union urging all three parties to get together and resolve the dispute as soon as possible.

But council won't comment on issues such as part-time workers or contracting out.

"I'm hesitant to inject ourselves into these complex negotiations without really knowing about it," Coun. Malcolm Brodie said.