National

Metro Vancouver workers closer to 'full-scale strike' with no contract progress

Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 11 Jun, 2026 09:42 AM

Metro Vancouver's unionized outside workers are threatening a full-scale strike after no progress toward an agreement during weeks of rotating pickets.

Jesse Medeiros, the president of the Greater Vancouver Regional District Employees’ Union, says in a statement that the members are "fed up" with no progress or talks planned.

Pickets have been set up on Thursday at work yards in Surrey and Delta as part of the union's weeks-long job action.

The union says Metro Vancouver has attached preconditions to a return to bargaining, and workers will be forced to conduct a full-scale strike despite efforts to "minimize inconvenience to the public."

However, the regional district has said that no preconditions are being attached to continuing talks, and it has offered five bargaining dates as well as the appointment of a mediator that the union has rejected.

The union's last agreement expired about 17 months ago.

Rotating pickets have so far hit Metro Vancouver's head office in Burnaby, multiple wastewater and water treatment facilities, and popular recreational sites such as the Grouse Grind and Queen Elizabeth Park.

Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

Prev Next

MORE National ARTICLES

Amid U.S. tariff threats, a fight may be brewing over Canadian supply management

The federal government and the Canadian dairy industry are vowing to protect the country’s supply management system in the face of threats from the United States. But some observers, and even some who work in the industry, say Canada will have to consider changes to the decades-old system that controls the supply of dairy products to appease a combative Trump administration.

Amid U.S. tariff threats, a fight may be brewing over Canadian supply management

Police say YouTuber caught speeding on Vancouver Island loses car for a week

Mounties on Vancouver Island say a man who described himself as a YouTube influencer had his vehicle impounded and was fined $368 for speeding. Police say an unmarked BC Highway Patrol officer was working Sunday in Lantzville when he heard an "excessively loud" vehicle accelerate from a stoplight on Highway 19.

Police say YouTuber caught speeding on Vancouver Island loses car for a week

California builders say few alternatives to Canadian timber, despite tariff threat

California homebuilders say they have few options but to keep buying Canadian lumber, even if it's hit with 25 per cent tariffs, as they rebuild thousands of homes destroyed by devastating wildfires in Los Angeles.

California builders say few alternatives to Canadian timber, despite tariff threat

B.C. investigates 'significant' opioid diversion, including international trafficking

A recent B.C. Ministry of Health document says a "significant portion" of opioids prescribed by doctors and pharmacists are being diverted and that prescribed alternatives are being trafficked provincially, nationally and internationally.

B.C. investigates 'significant' opioid diversion, including international trafficking

2 arrested in catalytic converter theft

Mounties in Burnaby say two women have been arrested after stealing a catalytic converter from a van in a parking lot in the area of Brighton Avenue and Lougheed Highway. They say that on January 22nd, officers responded to reports of the women underneath the vehicle, but the pair left the scene before they arrived.

2 arrested in catalytic converter theft

Talk of changing Vancouver's supportive housing policy has organizations on edge

Mayor Ken Sim announced last month that he would be putting forward a proposal to pause construction of net new supportive housing units in Vancouver, arguing that the city needs to focus on updating its current stock, while supply in other parts of the region increases.