Another transit strike is looming over Metro Vancouver as Coast Mountain Bus Company struggles to agree with CUPE Local 4500 on a new contract for its approximately 180 supervisors.
Thousands of people throughout Metro Vancouver had their daily commutes majorly disrupted for a couple of days as transit workers enacted a two-day shutdown of all its bus services.
This strike came to an end on Jan. 24, but another even longer strike is on the horizon if a contract deal is not reached by Feb. 3, warned CUPE Local 4500.
READ MORE: 72-hour Metro Vancouver bus strike promised next week if deal not reached
While the proposed 72-hour strike would impact people from all walks of life, it would be particularly detrimental to local seniors, explained Tri-Cities Qualicare owner/director Michelle Bailey.
She said that a large portion of people in Metro Vancouver rely on in-home care, either through a private caregiver or a home care agency like Qualicare.
“Our clients live in New West, Burnaby, Tri-Cities, Pitt Meadows, and Maple Ridge. But 26 per cent of our clients live in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows,” said Bailey.
Through the previous 48-hour transit strike, Bailey said that the company had to deal with a lot of challenges regarding getting their caregivers to the people who rely on them.
“Most of our caregivers are part-time workers and a large number of our caregivers rely on transit for a multitude of reasons,” she said.
“Our office staff had to postpone our regular work and go out driving caregivers to their clients. However, we had to prioritize client needs to decide who received care and who did not as we couldn’t physically get everyone to where they needed to be due to our service volume. Some home visits had to be postponed to later in the week, and some clients had to endure unfamiliar caregivers that were able to drive to the client.”
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If the company operator and union are not able to reach a deal, the next disruption could make things even worse for local seniors and their caregivers, with CUPE 7000 – who represents SkyTrain workers – revealing that the impending 72-hour service disruption would include all SkyTrain services this time as well.
This would result in a near-complete public transportation ban in Metro Vancouver for three days if a new contract is not agreed upon by Saturday, Feb. 3.