As newcomers call for mediation in Fraser Valley transit strike, BC's Labour Minister says parties must agree

This story was published on May 5. You can find our latest story here.

Twice a week, a group of recent immigrants meets in Abbotsford to talk and practise the English skills that will help them in their new country. Such meetings happen every week in communities across the Fraser Valley.

But for many, getting to those meetings is much harder now that a strike has halted local bus service.

Deng, one of the newcomers that attend language classes at Archway Community Services, has been trying to work as much overtime as possible to pay for her daughter to use a taxi to attend university.

“I’m always tired,” Deng said in an article distributed by Archway to encourage a resolution to the strike. Other transit users are putting off medical appointments and other vital trips. Up to half those who attend Archway classes rely on the bus to get to key appointments and amenities, the non profit says. And other programs that serve vulnerable, low-income or racialized people have also been disproportionately affected.

“It is time for solutions,” Zainab, a newcomer from Afghanistan, said in the Archway article.

But the province has not yet appointed a special mediator to try to settle the dispute. Why not? We spoke this week to BC Labour Minister Harry Bains to get his response to those like Zainab —including local politicians—who have asked him to appoint someone to get the buses running.

We asked Bains: how would he explain why this strike has gone on so long to newcomers like Deng and others who rely on buses, and how would he explain government’s inability to bring it to a resolution.

Bains—who served as an elected union officer for 15 years before entering politics—expressed sympathy with those affected and shared their frustrations.

But he said that the right to free collective bargaining gives workers a right to strike, and companies the ability to lock workers out.

“We must respect the integrity of our collective bargaining process, which means allowing both parties to bargain fairly on their own.”

The newcomers quoted by Archway do acknowledge Canada has a constitutionally enshrined right to strike. But some, like Zainab, said it’s time to get to work fixing the strike.

“Transit workers have every right to protest,” he said in Archway’s story. “However, it has now been a month without services, and it is time for solutions!”

Rosalba, a newcomer from Mexico, said she recognized the right to strike in Canada, but added that “this dispute is dragging on too long and it is affecting many people in serious ways. I think the parties need mediation and need a win-win.”

As labour minister, Bains has the ability to appoint a special mediator at any time. Local municipal councils have urged Bains to do exactly that.

So we read Rosalba’s comments to Bains and asked why he hasn’t yet appointed a mediator.

He said he’s told both sides to start talking, and offered any help they may need or request, including a mediator.

“As a result of the frustrations and the concerns raised by many, including the local governments, I have reached out to both sides personally and drawn to their attention to the urgency to get back to the bargaining table, and also reminding them of their responsibility to the people that they serve and the people who rely on the service that they provide.”

But he said the two parties haven’t jointly accepted mediation, and until they do so, a mediator won’t be able to solve the problem.

“It is up to the parties to accept mediation. No mediation is going to work if the parties are not ready for mediation. I think that’s the difficult part.”

It was mediator Vince Ready who helped resolve last year’s strike in the Sea to Sky bus corridor. After both sides eventually agreed to mediation, Ready participated in negotiation talks. Then, after no agreement was reached, he conducted research and came up with a recommended framework and terms for a new contract. The parties agreed to that contract, resolving the strike. But that resolution only came after four months of buses sitting still.

The Fraser Valley’s bus strike is now in its seventh week. We asked Bains if residents should expect buses to sit stationary for months more before a mediator is assigned to bring the parties together.

But though he has the right to appoint a mediator at any time, he again stressed that doing so unilaterally wouldn’t work.

“I fully believe that the best collective agreements are always negotiated by the parties involved in the dispute at the bargaining table among themselves,” he said. “Mediation will help parties if the parties are willing to engage with the mediator and mediation’s help.

Bains pointed out that the parties in the Sea-to-Sky dispute also originally refused a mediator’s assistance. A mediator was only appointed after workers voted to reject the offer put on the table.

By contrast, in 2019, a Translink strike looked possible, but both sides engaged a mediator prior to any large-scale work action.

“It’s just a process of collective bargaining parties and the people that they represent need to satisfy their needs,” Bains said. “Our role as the government is to make sure that the needs of the public are also addressed and that’s why we’re pushing both parties hard to get back to the bargaining table, and offer mediation or any other help that there may be through the Labour board.

“So far they are refusing.”

So, we asked, could Bains impose mediation on the two sides.

Bains didn’t answer (BC’s Labour Relations Code does appear to give him the ability to do so.)

Instead he focused on the effectiveness of doing so—and its potential to backfire.

“I cannot impose a collective agreement upon them,” he said. “Mediators can make recommendations and I can tell you, the experience will tell you, that if a mediator is appointed or forced upon them and they come back with recommendations and the membership rejects the [recommendations], we are in a bigger problem than the problem we are trying to resolve.”

Bains said a failed mediation could lead the two sides to further entrench themselves in their position and be less willing to compromise.

“If the parties don’t like the recommendations, they will pick it apart… and their positions will be even more stringent. Prior experience tells you that that’s sometimes the way it goes.”

And so, Bains said he won’t intervene without being welcomed to do so by the bus workers and their employer.

“Those are some of the complexities of the labour relations and collective bargaining so we all have to be very, very careful,” he said. “I have no intention of intervening; these two parties have a history of bargaining on their own and they understand their responsibilities to the public and to the government.”