SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2019 | THEGLOBEANDMAIL O A
The first day of job action by tran-
sit workers in Metro Vancouver
caused SeaBus cancellations on a
busy commuter route across the
Burrard Inlet.
TransLink said seven SeaBus
round trips, totalling 14 sailings,
were cancelled starting Friday af-
ternoon and into the evening.
The transit authority warned
commuters to expect delays and
to consider using buses instead.
The first stage of the job action
included transit workers not
wearing uniforms and refusing
overtime.
Unifor, the union representing
5,000 transit workers, had pre-
dicted that maintenance workers’
refusal to work overtime could af-
fect SeaBus service between Van-
couver and North Vancouver by
the afternoon rush.
Mike McDaniel, president of
the Coast Mountain Bus Compa-
ny, said further delays were likely
on the weekend with about 30
sailings expected to be cancelled
on Saturday and Sunday.
Unifor is asking for an addi-
tional $608-million in wages,
benefits and improvements to
working conditions over 10 years,
he told a news conference.
Mr. McDaniel said the compa-
ny’s current offer would increase
maintenance workers’ wages 12.
per cent and transit workers’ wag-
es 9.6 per cent over four years. It
would also enhance benefits and
improve working conditions.
“We are okay with offering
more than what the rest of the
public sector gets in British Co-
lumbia, because we need to ad-
dress the specific things that
we’ve looked at doing,” he said.
“What that means, though, is
that this is a more than reason-
able offer we have on the table.”
If the company were to give in
to the union’s demands, the cost
would compromise all planned
transit upgrades over the next 10
years in Metro Vancouver, he
said.
“We specifically want to use
this money for what everybody is
asking us to do with it: expand
service, help control overcrowd-
ing, give more service because
the demand is increasing,” he
said.
The union’s chief negotiator,
Gavin McGarrigle, said the $
million figure needs to be placed
in context of a $7.5-billion plan to
improve the region’s transit over
the next decade.
“We support transit expansion.
The company is throwing around
big numbers like that but you
need to place it inside a multibil-
lion-dollar transit expansion,” he
said in an interview.
He also said it wasn’t fair to
compare transit workers to pub-
lic-sector employees because
they’re not directly employed by
the provincial government.
TransLink receives funding from
the municipal, provincial and
federal governments, as well as
through a gas tax, he said.
The wages of transit workers
should be compared with other
jurisdictions, such as Toronto
where they earn about $3 more
per hour, he said.
Mr. McGarrigle also said the
company has not addressed a
lack of guaranteed minimum
breaks for transit workers during
their shifts, which are 7^1 ⁄ 2 hours
on average.
He told a news conference ear-
lier Friday if the dispute drags on,
buses requiring maintenance will
likely have to be taken off the
streets, further reducing service.
Mr. McGarrigle said his mem-
bers have been without a con-
tract since March and he warned
the dispute could be lengthy.
“Our members are so deter-
mined this time. We’re prepared
to wait this out, and if that means
six months, nine months, a year,
that’s what we are going to do
and we are going to make sure we
get that fair contract,” he told a
news conference.
The most recent transit strike
in Metro Vancouver was in 2001
when a four-month walkout crip-
pled the commute for hundreds
of thousands of people.
The job action will not affect
West Vancouver’s blue bus sys-
tem, SkyTrain services, or the
HandyDART service for passen-
gers with physical or cognitive
disabilities.
Unifor and Coast Mountain
said they will do their best to give
passengers 24- to 48-hours notice
of further service disruptions.THECANADIANPRESSSeaBustrips
cancelledon
firstdayof
Vancouver
transitdispute
VANCOUVERTurkish and Russian troops in armoured
vehicles held their first joint ground patrols
in northeastern Syria on Friday under a
deal between the two countries that forced
a Kurdish militia away from territory near
Turkey’s border.
Turkey and allied Syrian rebels launched
a cross-border offensive on Oct. 9 against
the Kurdish YPG militia, seizing control of
120 kilometres of land along the frontier.
Last week, Ankara and Moscow agreed
to remove the militia fighters to a depth of
at least 30 kilometres south of the border
and Russia has told Turkey that the YPG left
the strip.
Turkish armoured vehicles on Friday
drove across the border to join their Rus-
sian counterparts, according to Reuters tel-
evision footage filmed from the Turkish
side of the border. About four hours later,
they returned to Turkey.
Ground and air units were involved in
the patrol around the Syrian border town
of Darbasiya, the Turkish Defence Ministry
said on Twitter, showing photos of soldiers
studying a map and of four armoured vehi-
cles.
On Wednesday, President Tayyip Erdo-
gan said Turkey had information that the
YPG, which Ankara sees as a terrorist group
because of its ties to Kurdish militants in
southeast Turkey, had not completed its
pullout.
Russia is theSyrian government’s most
powerful ally and helped it turn the tables
in the country’s civil war by retaking much
of the country from rebels since 2015. The
Turkish-Russian deal last week allowed
Syriangovernment forces to move back in-
to border regions from which they had
been absent for years.
Ankara launched its offensive against
the YPG following U.S. President Donald
Trump’s abrupt withdrawal of 1,000 U.S.
troops from northern Syria in early Octo-
ber. The YPG helped the United States
smash the Islamic State “caliphate” in Sy-
ria.
Four Russian vehicles and a drone also
took part in Friday’s patrol, conducted in
an area between 40 kilometres east of Ras
al Ain and 30 kilometres west of Qamishli, a
Turkish security source said.
The source said patrols would extend
further along the border strip and drones
would be used to ensure YPG fighters had
left the area.
The source said there had been no direct
clashes with Syriangovernment forces dur-
ing the incursion.Overnight, the Defence Ministry said
Turkey had handed over to the Russians 18
Syrian government soldiers detained in Sy-
ria near the Turkish border this week.
The 18 men were seized on Tuesday dur-
ing operations southeast of the Syrian
town of Ras al Ain, part of an area where
Turkey’s incursion took place.
President Erdogan said on Thursday
that Turkey planned to establish a “refugee
town or towns” in a “safe zone” between Tel
Abyad and Ras al Ain, part of a project
which state media have said would cost 151-
billion Turkish lira ($35-billion).
He met United Nations Secretary-Gener-
al Antonio Guterres on Friday and had said
he would ask him to call for a donors’ meet-
ing to help finance Ankara’s plans to reset-
tle Syrian refugees in the region. “I will say:
‘You make a call for an international do-
nors’ meeting. If you don’t, I will make this
call’,” Mr. Erdogan said on Thursday.
“If it doesn’t happen, we will establish a
refugee town or towns between Tel Abyad
and Ras al Ain,” he said, addressing a build-
ing contractor in the hall and saying he
would ask him to play a role in the project.
Ankara has said it plans to resettle in Sy-
ria up to two million of the 3.6 million Syr-
ian war refugees that it hosts.
Mr. Erdogan and Mr. Guterres discussed
Turkey’s plan, UN spokesman Farhan Haq
told reporters in New York on Friday.REUTERSRussian soldiers watch as Turkish military vehicles prepare to return to Turkey after patrolling with Russian forces in northeastern Syria on
Friday. The joint patrols are to verify that Kurdish forces have withdrawn from a key border zone.DELILSOULEIMAN/AFP/GETTYIMAGES
TurkishandRussiantroops
holdfirstjointpatrolsinSyria
Ground,airoperationsarepart
ofadealbetweenthetwothat
droveaKurdishmilitiaaway
fromareanearTurkey’sborder
BULENT USTASEVIMLI,TURKEY
Tens of thousands of Iraqis thronged cen-
tral Baghdad on Friday demanding the
root-and-branch downfall of the political
elite in the biggest day of mass anti-gov-
ernment demonstrations since the fall of
Saddam Hussein.
One woman died after she was struck in
the head by a tear-gas canister, Iraq’s Hu-
man Rights Commission said, and at least
155 people were wounded on Friday as se-
curity forces used tear gas and rubber bul-
lets on protesters camped out in the cap-
ital’s Tahrir Square.
Five people died on Thursday night
from similar injuries.
Protests have accelerated dramatically
in recent days, drawing huge crowds from
across Iraq’s sectarian and ethnic divides
to reject the political parties in power since
2003.
Friday, the Muslim main day of prayer,
drew the biggest crowds yet, with many
taking to the streets after worship.
By the afternoon tens of thousands had
packed the square, condemning elites they
see as deeply corrupt, beholden to foreign
powers and responsible for daily priva-
tions.
Protests have been comparatively
peaceful by day, becoming more violent af-
ter dark as police use tear gas and rubber
bullets to battle self-proclaimed “revolu-
tionary” youths.
At least 250 people have been killed over
the past month.
Clashes have focused on the ramparts to
the Republic Bridge leading across the Ti-
gris to the heavily fortified Green Zone of
government buildings, where the protes-
ters say out-of-touch leaders are holed up
in a walled-off bastion of privilege.
“Every time we smell death from your
smoke, we yearn more to cross your repub-
lic’s bridge,” someone wrote on a nearby
wall.
Amnesty International said on Thurs-
day security forces were using “previously
unseen” tear gas canisters modelled on
military grenades that are 10 times as
heavy as standard ones.
“We are peaceful yet they fire on us.
What are we, Islamic State militants? I saw
a man die. I took a tear gas canister to the
face,” said Barah, 21, whose face was wrap-
ped in bandages.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on
Friday urged all sides to reject violence,
adding that Iraq’s official inquiry into the
early October violence “lacked sufficient
credibility.”
“The Iraqi people deserve genuine ac-
countability and justice,” Mr. Pompeo said
in a statement. “The Government of Iraq
should listen to the legitimate demands
made by the Iraqi people.”
In Baghdad, protesters had set up check-
points in the streets leading into and sur-
rounding Tahrir Square, redirecting traffic.
Young people swept the streets, many
sang about the sit-in. Helmets and gas
masks were now a common sight.
A woman pushed her baby in a stroller
draped with an Iraqi flag while representa-
tives from severalIraqi tribeswavedban-
ners pledging support for the protesters.
Mohammed Najm, a jobless engineer-
ing graduate, said the square had become a
model for the country he and his comradeshope to build: “We are cleaning streets,
others bring us water, they bring us elec-
tricity, they wired it up.
“A mini-state. Health for free, tuk-tuks
transporting for free,” he said. “The state
has been around for 16 years and what it
failed to do we did in seven days in Tahrir.”
Despite Iraq’s oil wealth, many live in
poverty with limited access to clean water,
electricity, health care or education. The
government of Prime Minister Adel Abdul
Mahdi, in office for a year, has found no re-
sponse to the protests.
Many Iraqis see the political class as sub-
servient to one or another of Baghdad’s
main allies, the United States and Iran,
who use Iraq as a proxy in a struggle for
regional influence.
“Iraqis have suffered at the hands of this
evil bunch who came atop American tanks
and from Iran. Qassem Soleimani’s people
are now firing on the Iraqi people in cold
blood,” protester Qassam al-Sikeeni said.
Iraqi President Barham Salih said on
Thursday that Mr. Abdul Mahdi would re-
sign if parliament’s main blocs agreed on a
replacement.REUTERSIraqisrallyinlargestanti-government
demonstrationssincefallofHussein
Demonstrators wave national flags during an anti-government protest on Friday in Basra,
Iraq, on Friday. At least 250 people have been killed over the past month during such
demonstrations.HUSSEINFALEH/AFPVIAGETTYIMAGESAHMED ABOULENEIN
RAYA JALABIBAGHDAD
NEWS |