The Workers Who Keep SkyTrain Clean Aren’t Happy

Lenna McVeety has been cleaning the SkyTrain for nearly four years. The work has always been tough — but McVeety said working conditions got much worse last month when Dexterra Group took over as the janitors’ employer.

“It was a horrible transition,” she said. “We’re up to here with these people.”

McVeety is one of approximately 160 janitors who clean Vancouver’s SkyTrain network, including the trains and the operations and maintenance centre. Until Feb. 1, they worked for a different contractor that TransLink contracted to clean the trains.

But in the weeks since the Mississauga, Ont.-based Dexterra Group took over, 17 workers have been laid off and some janitors are accusing the new management of union busting, intimidation, bullying and harassment — allegations that have led to their union filing a formal grievance.

Dexterra Group spokesperson Miranda Smith said in an email the company is operating in accordance with the janitors’ collective agreement. She added formal grievances are the “agreed-upon forum” for resolving these issues.

“Our priority throughout this transition has been safety, stability and continuity,” Smith said. “Our focus remains on supporting our employees and delivering safe, reliable service.”

On Tuesday, around 50 Skytrain janitors, their union and supporters rallied outside the Metrotown SkyTrain station in Burnaby calling for change.

Steve Fanning, an organizer with Service Employees International Union Local 2, said the union has filed several grievances over the alleged toxic work environment with the employer. The union has also filed an unfair labour practice complaint to the employer, alleging the company withheld pay from unionized workers in an effort to get them to decertify from their union.*

These allegations have not yet been tested at the BC Labour Relations Board.

Fanning called on the employer to improve the janitors’ working conditions before the thousands of visitors come to Vancouver for the FIFA World Cup.

“Just imagine how much extra foot traffic there will be on the SkyTrain and going throughout the downtown core, and how much of a strain that puts on workers who are responsible for cleaning up after them,” Fanning said. “In advance of that, to lay off 17 of your janitorial staff just seems ludicrous.”

The janitors who clean most of the SkyTrain network — with the exception of the Canada Line — unionized with SEIU Local 2 in 2022.

At the time, the janitors were employed by Bee-Clean Building Maintenance, one of the 11 cleaning companies that signed on to negotiate at Vancouver’s citywide bargaining table.

The workers who clean the SkyTrain’s Canada Line were separately employed by Dexterra at the time and did not join a union. They currently remain non-unionized.

Dexterra took over the contract to clean the entire SkyTrain network on Feb. 1. Because of B.C.’s successorship laws, most of the janitors kept their jobs and SEIU Local 2 stayed on as the workers’ bargaining agent. Successorship laws require employers, called successors, to honour union rights and collective agreements when taking over a company or contract.

The union’s Fanning estimates the 17 layoffs have meant some janitors have had to pick up the slack, with some seeing workloads increase by 50 per cent.

“It’s causing a real significant increase in the workload for all of those remaining employees,” he said.

Boluwatife, a janitor who did not want to share her last name, has been cleaning the SkyTrain for two years. She said cleaners were already managing high workloads before Dexterra took over.

Cleaners on the day and morning shifts might be asked to clean two stations alone, while janitors working at night would be expected to clean up to five.

She said with 10 per cent less workers, the janitors have to move quicker and clean less thoroughly to clean one or two extra stations.

“They’ve been bombarded with work,” Boluwatife said. “They are laying off people, and we know that’s going to turn on us and overwork us.”

She added the workload will only increase this summer, when Vancouver expects about 350,000 visitors to come to the city for the FIFA World Cup.

“A lot of new people are coming. They want to see the beauty of Canada,” Boluwatife said. “Imagine them coming and all they see are cigarettes and vomit. It’s not going to be a good image for Canada.”

Sussanne Skidmore, president of the BC Federation of Labour, told rally attendees that Dexterra was union-busting and disrespecting workers.

“We are here to teach a billion-dollar company a lesson about respect,” she said. “This employer should be ashamed of themselves.”

The union won’t get to address these issues in bargaining until 2028. And Fanning said Dexterra has refused to join the citywide bargaining table, meaning the unionized SkyTrain janitors won’t be able to bargain alongside the 3,000 other cleaners they joined in negotiations last year.

Instead, Fanning says the union plans to fight the employer until it reinstates the 17 laid-off workers and management stops its toxic behaviour toward workers.

But for McVeety, that’s not far enough.

“We want to see Dexterra gone,” she said. “We want them out of here because they’re not doing a good job for us at all.”

*Story updated on March 30 at 8:17 a.m. An earlier version said the union's unfair labour practice complaint was filed with the BC Labour Relations Board. It was in fact filed with the company that employs the cleaners.