Whatever else one can say about the rights-wrongs of the current Metro Transit strike, it is clear HRM negotiators were never interested in negotiating with its 760 bus drivers, ferry operators and support staff.

The contract between Metro Transit and the Amalgamated Transit Union expired Sept 1. There was just one face-to-face session – essentially a presentation of proposals – before the municipality applied for conciliation. That’s unusual.

According to the union, HRM and its police and water-commission unions are still negotiating new contracts two and four years after the previous ones expired.

From November to January, the two sides met with a conciliator eight times before HRM walked away, triggering a conciliator’s report, a strike vote and the countdown to the now ongoing work stoppage.

Municipal negotiators twiddled their thumbs until 30 minutes before last Wednesday’s  midnight strike deadline. Then they offered the union-which had a 98.4 per cent strike mandate-an either-or, take-it-or-leave-it offer.

The key sticking point isn’t money but scheduling.

The municipality blames a century-old rostering system – which allows senior drivers to pick their schedules first – for $1 million in unbudgeted overtime. (A city report, however, acknowledges those cost overruns include covering for vacancies, sick leave, holidays and special events, and
represent only one factor in Metro Transit’s $3-million deficit.)

The drivers say they need rostering because of the split-shift nature of their jobs.

A driver, who is required to report for work at the transit garage 15 minutes before a 6 a.m. shift, drives for four hours and may find herself ending her shift far from the transit garage – and her car. She then has four hours to kill before beginning her 2 p.m. shift somewhere else. An eight-hour day suddenly becomes more than 12.

Surely, there are ways to make the rostering system more efficient for Metro Transit without eliminating its obvious lifestyle benefits for longtime drivers.

But in order to accomplish that, the two sides would have to talk.

There’s no sign that will happen soon.

And no sign either of leadership from city hall to make that happen.