Transit riders have awoken to Halifax’s first transit strike in 14 years.

Metro Transit and the union representing over 700 transit workers made a last-ditch effort to avoid a strike into the early hours of Thursday.

In the end, though, it proved for naught.

Just before 2 a.m., Ken Wilson, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 508, said they had rejected HRM’s latest offer.

Municipal negotiators called the union back to the table around 11:30 p.m. Wednesday, 30 minutes before they were to go on the picket line.

Union representatives arrived at the Holiday Inn Harbourview just after midnight as the strike was put on hold.

Within 10 minutes, the union left the negotiating room to mull over Metro Transit’s latest final offer. Wilson offered no comment at that time.

Shortly afterwards, Metro Transit director Eddie Robar and the municipal negotiating team followed.

The situation looked bleak Wednesday evening. The two sides met briefly around 6 p.m., but union representatives stormed out after only about 10 minutes.

“We gave them solutions to avoid this,” said Wilson after leaving the negotiating room.

“The problem is they just don’t understand it. They don’t understand the business.”

At issue is the ability for transit workers to pick their own shifts based on seniority. Along with contracting out services and hiring part-time workers, scheduling was one of three main sticking points for the union.

Robar said that while the municipality was willing to budge on the first two, the scheduling issue was a deal breaker.

“We struggle on a daily basis to put service out on the road because of the erratic way they pick their work,” Robar said.

Robar could point to one week “five, six months ago” when the issue came up “four or five times” ‘  although he said Metro Transit dealt with the issue every day.