Calgary’s overly-sick transit drivers asked to get in better shape

Calgary bus drivers are being encouraged to take better care of themselves, after a recent audit determined that an excess of sick days was responsible for Calgary Transit overshooting their overtime budget by 70 per cent.

The Calgary Transit Overtime Management Audit reveals that while the city had budgeted to pay operators $5.4 million in overtime in 2011, sick days and absenteeism resulted in a total of $9.3 million being spent.

The report found the biggest reason for paying overtime was to cover drivers away on vacation. A close second, however, was covering drivers who were absent from work due to poor health.

"Transit management should explore opportunities to minimize the frequency and duration of these occurrences. Promoting a healthy workforce would increase workforce availability thus minimizing the need to incur overtime costs," the report reads.

The audit found that there were 29,343 sick days in 2011. This was an average of 93 bus drivers absent from work every day. Not only that, but the 1,942 vehicle operators on staff missed an average of 15.3 days per year – nearly double the city average of 8.2 days.

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Calgary Transit director Doug Morgan reiterated the point when the auditor's report was discussed by council on Thursday, saying drivers were being encouraged to take better care of themselves.

“We have a personal trainer that's open to operators, we have fitness facilities that they can come to when they're in between shifts to work on fitness. And we try to give them resources that they can go and look at how to become more fit,” Morgan said, according to CBC News.

The Edmonton Journal reported that Calgary Transit also considered 2011 a "unique year," because the city decided to boost service by 140,000 hours that year - putting a strain on the workforce that could have played a role in the increased number of sick days.

In 2010, the service overshot their overtime budget by 29 per cent, spending a total of $6.9 million on overtime.

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Still, it shouldn’t be a surprise that professional drivers are sick more often than, say, office workers. According to the Amalgamated Transit Union, bus drivers face increased chances many diseases and afflictions, including hypertension – which can lead to heart attacks and strokes.

Not only that, being surrounded by traffic pollution all day can have significant effects on a person’s respiratory system, according to Health Canada.

So while the number of sick days taken by Calgary transit drivers is fairly shocking, there are reasons for it. And all that comes back to health. So should Calgary drivers take better care of themselves? Sure, we all should.

Kudos to Calgary Transit for helping them do it. And not just because it will help the bottom line.