Over 40,000 commuters have been forced to make tough decisions about how to get to work and school after York Region Transit (YRT) workers went on strike Oct. 24.
The union represents 560 drivers and mechanics, who are responsible for 85 different bus routes throughout York Region, according to the Excalibur.
YRT’s strike, to go along with Viva’s, has disabled about 60 per cent of bus routes in the region. Viva is the region’s privately-owned bus service contractor.
“[The strike] is becoming a big problem for students that live in the York Region and need to commute to school,” said Elis Yusufov, a first-year kinesiology student at York University.
“Over the past few days, increasingly more people have been late to lectures due to [the strike] and class sizes seem to be smaller altogether.”
Students at York aren’t the only ones inconvenienced by the transit strike.
“People are sleeping at their friends’ houses close to campus because they have no other way of getting to their classes,” said Nancy Chahine, a first-year humanities student at the University of Toronto.
Negotiations have been at a standstill since a final offer was unanimously rejected by YRT workers Oct. 20, according to Bob Kinnear, head of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113, which represents approximately 200 Viva workers.
As this point, YRT workers receive 30 per cent less in wages, 40 per cent less in benefits, and a subsidiary rate four times as high as that of transit workers in Toronto, according to Kinnear.
A small group of buses are still running in what is known as “the southwest region,” Kinnear said.
“There’s a misconception we’re trying to improve on our bloated entitlement of sick days,” Kinnear said. “These employees don’t have sick days.”
Although they’re on strike, the workers aren’t picketing just yet.
“We are not trying to inconvenience the people more than we need to,” Kinnear said. “[But] at some point, we will have to demonstrate our unhappiness at a higher level.”
Kinnear said commuters can anticipate a long strike unless “the elected councillors in York Region can persuade these contractors to come back to the bargaining table.”
Losing public transit due to a long strike is a problem many Carleton students are familiar with.
On Dec. 10, 2008, OC Transpo drivers, dispatchers and maintenance workers went on a strike that lasted through the winter. Full bus service resumed in April 2009.
“People were stranded without ways of getting to and from class in freezing January,” said Yaelle Gang, a fourth-year journalism student.
Class sizes also decreased, Gang said. Professors and teacher’s assistants had to start making exceptions so students didn’t have to attend their tutorials, Gang said.
“Students were really angry because they had to cab to and from all of their classes, which is expensive for students,” she said. “I know it definitely made my first year experience worse.”
