Union Hopes It’s on Right Track With Trolley Workers

For the first time since the San Diego Trolley began operation in mid-1981, its workers are represented by a labor union, under a three-year contract that took effect Sept. 1.

The agreement between the trolley and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 465 allows the union to represent the approximately 100 hourly employees, including drivers and maintenance workers, under an open-shop relationship. The arrangement gives the individual worker the right to join or not join the union but to receive any and all benefits negotiated by the union with the publicly owned company.

Whether or not the new IBEW-trolley contract represents a significant exception to the nationwide trend of a weakened organized labor movement depends on how officials interpret the open-shop provision.

Dave Moore, the business agent for Local 465, admits the drawback to the union of an open shop. “There’s less money (dues) for us, and it makes it harder to negotiate if you don’t have all the people,” Moore said, conceding that less than half of the workers have joined the union. “But it’s up to us to show that a union can do things for the workers, especially in making (trolley) working conditions better by allowing employees to come forward with grievances and not fear reprisal.

“I want to prove to (those workers) who voted for a union that their vote was not wasted.”

The IBEW already has asked the California Occupational Health and Safety Administration to inspect the trolley facilities for alleged violations. Results of that inspection, made last week, are not yet available, a Cal-OSHA spokesman said.

Trolley General Manager Langley Powell downplayed the importance of the union agreement, citing the open-shop provision.

“I don’t want to get into a (debate) with the union but I suggest you ask them what the membership is,” Powell said. “The agreement is not going to cause us to operate any differently.”

As is usual in labor-management situations, the two sides disagree on the origins of the contract.

Almost three years ago, the IBEW persuaded the necessary number of trolley employees to sign cards asking that the union be certified by the state to negotiate a labor contract. The IBEW has long represented the maintenance employees at San Diego Transit Corp., the region’s largest bus operator. (Bus drivers belong to a separate transit union.)

Powell said the action of the employees resulted from fear that San Diego Transit might one day take over the trolley’s operation and replace unorganized trolley workers with transit employees having representation.

“That wasn’t the entire reason, of course, but I think security was high on their minds,” Powell said. “And you don’t need 100 apples in a bag to cause change, but only three or four to stir up things, to get people confused.

“People get promised a lot of things and get wide-eyed and bushy-tailed.”

However, the subsequent negotiations took more than two years.

Powell said that “things went on as normal; we never had any particular problem that could be related to unionism or anything of that nature: no sickouts, no lockouts, no walkouts.”

But employees received no pay increases during the two-year-plus period because Powell said that any wage hikes could have been construed as unfair labor practices to convince employees not to join a union while negotiations were ongoing. (The contract calls for 5% increases in pay in each of the three years.)

“There was no great argument during negotiations over compensation, fringe benefits. All of that essentially was in place. I think it was just job security on the minds of some people,” Powell said.

Moore of the IBEW said that the question of an open or closed shop was the major sticking point. His predecessor in the business agent post had negotiated fruitlessly for two years to try and get a closed-shop agreement, where all employees must belong to the union, Moore said.

In addition, the union was facing a possible effort to decertify it as the bargaining agent for the workers because the contract talks were dragging on without apparent conclusion.

“I knew time was running out on negotiations so I went to the members and said that if I couldn’t get a closed shop, I’d sign an open shop and then show them that their voting for a union wasn’t wasted,” Moore said.

“So when the trolley offered an agreement with an open shop, thinking that we wouldn’t take it, we sort of surprised them by accepting.”

Moore said that the workers had nothing to lose. They will support the union if it can make a difference in working conditions and will not if the union proves ineffective, he said.

Moore believes that workers will now be more likely to complain about unsafe working conditions without fear of dismissal. The request for a Cal-OSHA inspection last week came after a hydraulic jack slipped while a maintenance employee worked underneath a trolley car, narrowly missing him, Moore said. The union is contesting management’s temporary suspension of the worker after he refused to re-enter the hydraulic jack area, Moore said.

“Langley Powell was the person you would go to for a grievance but the same person who dished out the discipline if he ruled against you,” Moore said. “He was judge, jury and executioner.” Under the contract, a neutral arbitrator will decide such questions.

Powell said that there will be arbitration now if the union requests it. “But we would not be dismissing people if it weren’t for good cause,” Powell said. “My point is that employees can go to various labor-oriented state or federal agencies to contest what they feel is a wrongful discharge, if they desire to do so, without a union.”

Under the agreement, the trolley workers can join the union at any time and withdraw from the union during a specified period each September.

“We have to make the effort to find out who the new people are when they are hired and sign them up,” Moore said.

Powell said he expects the productivity of trolley employees to remain high. “If it weren’t for the workers, we would not have a great performance record,” he said.