The main conflict that led Ottawa's transit workers to walk off the job this week was about scheduling, says the city's transit union. But the union and the City of Ottawa have very different opinions on what the city's cost-saving scheduling proposal could mean for drivers.

More than 2,200 OC Transpo transit drivers, dispatchers and maintenance workers began their strike Wednesday, leaving commuters scrambling to find other transportation options in snowy winter conditions.

'We're dealing with an ingrained way of doing things that we gave up 10 years ago and now everybody's realizing that this is not to everybody's advantage.'— Alain Mercier, OC Transpo

Randy Graham, international vice-president for the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents the workers, said the type of scheduling system that the city wants to get rid of is the one the city itself brought up nine years ago.

"We're perplexed why at the last minute the employer would want to take it away from us," he said Wednesday.

Huge savings under city's proposal

Alain Mercier, general manager for OC Transpo, the public transit company owned and run by the city, said the answer is simple — there are serious problems with the current system.

"Basically, we have what we consider an unfair and to some extent unsafe and inefficient scheduling system," he said, adding that the new system would:

• Reduce annual costs by $3.4 million immediately.
• Eliminate the need for 20 more buses.
• Eliminate the need to hire 100 more drivers.

The issue arises because many OC Transpo drivers work split shifts — that is, they have part of their shift in the morning and part of it in the afternoon, with a break in between, in order to accommodate customers' peak travel periods.

Under the new system for weekday scheduling, morning and afternoon shifts would come as a pair, Mercier said, adding that shifts are already paired on the weekends. The two shifts would have a maximum spread of 13½ hours, meaning that a driver who started at 8 a.m. would go home no later than 9:30 p.m.

Currently, drivers can choose from separate lists of morning runs and afternoon runs, with more senior drivers getting to choose first.

Graham said that makes it easier for drivers to schedule around their personal lives.

According to Graham, drivers are also unhappy about the scheduling issue because the union was only informed about the changes two weeks ago, although the city alleges the scheduling change was always on the table.

The current system was introduced almost a decade ago. Prior to that the city assigned shifts, but in 1999, drivers gave up the 12-hour limitation in exchange for the ability to pick their shifts, Graham said.

Now, the city wants to take away the decade-old right, but isn't offering to restore the 12-hour limit. Instead, the limit will sit at 13½ hours.

"The longer the spread, the longer you're away from your family and the less opportunity you have to do other things," Graham said.

Mercier said the 1999 change had some serious consequences for drivers, customers and taxpayers, but acknowledged that bus drivers might not want to go back.

"We're dealing with an ingrained way of doing things that we gave up 10 years ago and now everybody's realizing that this is not to everybody's advantage," he said.

Full day for all drivers

Mercier said under the current system, the most senior drivers get to "cherry pick" their shifts, and tend to choose morning and afternoon shifts of three-hours each, for which they are then paid eight hours due to guaranteed daily rates in the contract. That leaves behind many small pieces for less-experienced drivers, who make up the majority of workers, Mercier said.

"It also results in other drivers having unpredictable schedules and very short rest periods between shifts," Mercier said.

Under the proposed system, shifts will be paired so that all drivers will work a full day and drivers will always have at least eight hours rest between shifts. The most senior drivers would still get to choose first.

But less senior drivers, who have trouble piecing together a full day under the current system, would get more days off, Mercier said.

He added that when drivers pick morning and afternoon shifts separately, they often have to move around the city to get from one shift to another, and also tend to bunch their work together, not leaving enough time between runs, increasing the risk of service delays.

The city is proposing that the savings from implementing the new system would be shared with transit workers in the form of a $2,000 one-time bonus for each of them.