Metro Vancouver Transit Police got a pay hike of just over 10 per cent on April 1, following a new collective agreement.
The deal aims to bring their wages up to municipal police levels, arbitrator Stan Lanyon wrote in a decision earlier this year.
Transit police officers are governed by all the same rules as municipal police officers and receive the same training through the Justice Institute of B.C., Lanyon wrote, and the union and employer agreed they have the same patrolling duties and investigate similar crimes, in addition to having to investigate transit-related sex crimes.
TransLink and the Transit Police Professional Association reject the view that the officers are just “highly paid fare checkers,” Lanyon said.
The wage increase is retroactive to when the last contract expired in December 2015, and includes biannual increases going back to January 2016.
In 2019, transit police officers will receive the same pay hike as first class constables in the Vancouver Police Union.
Civilian employees will receive a 5.4-per-cent retroactive boost.
The union represents 238 members. Of those, about 70 per cent are police officers, 15 per cent are dispatchers and 15 per cent are clerical and support staff.
