YRT to provide two months of free service for inconvenience
HamidAdem
Staff Writer
@excalweb
Following a three-month strike that affected more than 44,000 commuters, YRT will finally resume regular bus schedules beginning February 4.
The strike involved workers from Viva and Miller Transit—who service approximately 60 per cent of the York Region bus routes—demanding better benefits and better working conditions. Only last week did York Region cancel its contract with First Canada and announced that they had hired TOK transit to take over their contract.
“The members ratified the agreement,” says Ray Doyle, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1587. “Viva workers have had a wage increase and now have their health benefits that are covered 75-per-cent by the company.”
He added that Miller group has signed a five-year agreement with their workers that includes a 16.1-per-cent wage increase over five years as well as improvements in health benefits and working conditions.
Miller Transit declined to comment at this time.
To make up for the lack of service for the past three months, the YRT has committed to provide two months of free service across all of their transit systems, which will be in effect by next week.
“We have taken the money saved from the strike and put it back into the system to offer free service from February 4 to March 31,” says a YRT representative. “We are starting back up a modified service February 4 and on Monday (February 6), approximately 96 per cent of riders will be serviced when the original routes are back in place, with the remaining four per cent of riders getting back their service February 24.”
But this doesn’t mean that everything is peachy; in fact, the ridership may be forced to pay a fare increase, according to Doyle’s speculations.
“It shouldn’t be anything higher than five cents,” he says.
York Region, on the other hand, has denied that there would be a fare increase.
