CUPE 4500 and Coast Mountain Bus Company concluded mediation but were unable to reach a tentative agreement. Without a settlement in place, CUPE 4500 members will be withdrawing all services from Coast Mountain Bus Company at 3:00 a.m. PT, Monday, January 22 for 48-hours.
“With the help of our mediator, CUPE 4500 put in an honest effort to find some common ground with Coast Mountain. But we are still not near where we need to be in addressing our key issues,” says Liam O’Neill, spokesperson for CUPE 4500. “For a fair settlement, CUPE 4500 members need wage discrepancies closed between them and other TransLink supervisors, and we need to tackle critical workload issues.”
Starting Monday morning, CUPE 4500 members will have up picket lines at Coast Mountain Bus Company Transit Centres in Vancouver, Surrey, Richmond, Burnaby, Port Coquitlam, and the SeaBus North Vancouver Terminal. Transit users in the Lower Mainland can expect the suspension of all bus and SeaBus services operated by Coast Mountain Bus Company.
“CUPE 4500 members are proud of the job we do for our passengers. Like them, our families and friends depend on transit too. We regret these disruptions and the challenges this will cause for the people we serve every day,” says O’Neill. “But Coast Mountain could have avoided this. Instead, they put us, and, through their inflexibility, transit users, in this situation.”