Back in Mid-Late April, Translink announced plans to layoff about 1,500 workers due to reduced ridership and demand for public transit. However, after yesterday’s announcement of BC’s plans to restart and re-open businesses that had been shut down, the union that represents the majority of those transit workers is calling for halt to those planned layoffs.
The original plan from Translink would see the affected staff temporarily laid off effective May 18th. Unifor (the Union) is arguing that fast and reliable transit is going to be essential for a safe re-opening and return to work. Of course there is also an argument to made that less staff means less buses running, and less buses running mean that the buses that will be left running will also have more people squeezed on per bus than they would otherwise. And with COVID-19, the last thing anyone wants is cramped unsafe buses for travelling to and from work every day. More info can be found here.
That’s all for now, stay safe everyone!
BC COVID-19 Info 