Once again, it looks like those of us who rely on public transportation on a daily basis could be faced with a strike of some sort, unless Cap City Metro and the unionized drivers and mechanics can come to terms. We are not very hopeful.
Last night the Cap City Metro Board held an emergency meeting to discuss the problem. Union workers from the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1091 were told after the meeting that federal mediator Mike McMillon had declared that both sides should return to the bargaining table. But...under one stipulation, the union must agree to further concessions. Union chief Jay Wyatt said, not so fast. "All the concessions that have been made n this negotiation have been made by us," Wyatt said.
And we see his point. Last year Cap Metro was insisting that new hires greatly reduce their pay and that employees pay more towards the group healthcare plan. (As for the mandatory drug-testing, we can more or less get behind that demand. If we wanted a stoned person driving us all over town we wouldn't have let Ben Brown leave so hastily.)
After arguing almost all of last year over these sticking points, Cap Metro unilaterally put into place a wage for new hires that was 20% lower than the previous contract. Graciously, according to them, they did leave the healthcare plan as is. So they feel they have done just as much to meet in the middle. The union does not feel the same. Something's gotta give. However, board vice chairwoman and Travis County Commissioner Margaret Gomez was apparently trying to take the weak our-hands-are-tied excuse saying that state law states the board can not legally intervene in a contract dispute of this nature. But Austin City Council Member Danny Thomas was not trying to hear that. "There is a time someone has to come forward and say, despite the rules and regulations, 'Enough is enough.'" Go 'head, Danny Thomas.
So how does this get resolved? Who's right and who's wrong? And do you care?
One of our faithful readers, Mike Dahmus, has been a watchdog on transportation-related community issues for years. Check out his insights into this matter on the Cap City commuter archive section of his blog.
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I think Capital Metro should make a wage concession. Perhaps drivers should concede on benefits, agreeing to a copay, and agree to reduce salary for new hires to levels for bus drivers nationwide.
The commuter rail program is going to cost Cap Metro $63 million as well. According to Ben Wear, they declined matching funds from a federal program because of red tape.
Here's the article about the matching funds: "The agency, looking at a long roll of federal red tape for transit grants, decided not to pursue $30 million in federal funds for the $90 million-plus rail project. And with rail supporters already talking about other, much more expensive projects, the agency's heretofore bountiful 1 percent sales tax suddenly looks insufficient."
Contrast it with this answer from FAQ that Cap Metro used to sell light rail: "Capital Metro would use existing local funds and Federal matching funds, which are expected to provide as much as 50 percent of the total cost of the project."
So maybe Cap Metro decided to cut into driver salaries because it bait and switched on the federal matching funds for rail?
The union needs to hold its ground on the tiered salary levels and benefits for new vs existing hires.
This is only a corporate maneuver to break the union now in negotiations and further splinter it in the years to come when the new hires realize the outgoing oldtimers threw them, their lives, their families, their careers, and their futures literally under the bus.
Labor must unite and be strong against this corporatism and conservatism for the sake of all of us. It won't stop with bus drivers, trust me.
1. As I just said on metroblogging Austin, Cap Metro didn't pursue the federal matching dollars because, frankly, this commuter rail plan is going to carry so few riders that the Feds would have rated it poorly, and hence, it probably wouldn't have gotten funded AND Cap Metro would have sustained a PR black eye. (Compare and contrast to the 2000 light rail plan, which was rated very highly by the Feds).
2. The union is right to reject any two-tier payscale, as that is an absolute union-killer. Whether or not you think the union is good, they'd be stupid to essentially sign on to their own demise.
And once again, any thread which talks at this length about Cap Metro's commuter rail plan which doesn't link to at least one of my articles makes Baby Jebus cry.
thanks for the thoughftul and well-researched comments and information
Sorry for the double-ping; my movable type installation is trying to be clever by autopinging you guys from a link within the article, and your software isn't being clever enough to notice the duplicates.
Thanks for the link at the bottom. Today, I emailed Sam Archer (community relations guy for Cap Metro) with both your story and the one on metroblogging austin, just in case he had something to say.