OCTD Board Quickly OKs New Contract for Drivers

Acting swiftly to put labor unrest behind, the Orange County Transit District board unanimously approved a new contract Monday for bus drivers, only hours after the drivers’ union ratified the agreement late Sunday.

The new three-year contract provides for pay hikes of 2% now, 2% beginning in October, 2.5% the following year and 1% during the first six months of 1989. This would bring salaries up to a maximum of $14.01 an hour in October, 1989. Full-time drivers previously were paid up to $13 an hour.

“I am very happy to close this chapter and put this time of unrest behind us,” OCTD board Chairman William E. Farris said. “We now have a united work force once again.”

Referring to the drivers’ unsuccessful, three-week strike last December amid six months of bitter bargaining, Farris said, “This was a very sad thing for me to sit through.”

Late Sunday night, members of Tustin-based United Transportation Union Local 19 voted 171 to 57 to approve the new contract, a turnout of less than one-third of the union’s 732 members.

The drivers had been working without a contract since October, when a previous agreement expired. A new tentative agreement was reached two weeks ago during a non-stop, 30-hour bargaining session conducted by former federal mediator Bonnie P. Castrey.

Union Chairwoman Juliene Smith praised the membership’s ratification vote and said, “We certainly came out much better than when we went into mediation.”

Monday, in the face of behind-the-scenes criticism from some OCTD officials and dissident union members, Smith even described a contract provision that allows for more paid jury duty as a significant management concession, but she acknowledged that the OCTD “got what it wanted on most economic issues.”

While OCTD officials sounded diplomatic at their public meeting Monday, privately they claimed victory on every concession that they had sought from UTU all along, including drug testing at district-selected medical clinics, a 7.5% lid on a salary hike to be phased in over 3 1/2 years and increased use of both part-time drivers and private contractors to provide transportation services.

Despite a pattern of similar union concessions to management in labor contract settlements nationwide, the Orange County drivers had objected strongly to each of the district’s contract goals and had sought a 16% salary increase over four years.

“The Reagan-Republican Administration and its anti-labor views are prevalent at this time,” the UTU’s Smith stated in a written report to bus drivers Sunday night. “We will look to 1990 and a Democratic government that appreciates the American worker, for economic progress in our next contract.”

But Smith’s report also claimed a major victory with “job sharing,” a contract provision that allows drivers to swap shifts among themselves, resulting in some four-day work weeks.