OCTA Settles With Supervisory Group, OKs Union Contract

Sixteen supervisors of the Orange County Transit District won about $6,000 each Monday in the settlement of their federal court lawsuit alleging unfair wage practices.

After meeting behind closed doors, Orange County Transportation Authority board members approved the settlement at the urging of their staff.

The transit district merged into OCTA last year.

Also approved Monday was a 3% annual pay hike in a new three-year contract between OCTA and the Transportation Communications Union, which represents 55 parts clerks, facilities technicians and revenue clerks at each of OCTA’s three bus yards.

At issue in the 16 supervisors’ lawsuit was whether they had been improperly denied wages at the rate of time and a half instead of straight time when they worked overtime, in some cases dating back to 1985.

“I’m happy,” said Robert Adams, a plaintiff who works long hours at the Santa Ana transit terminal. “We were just concerned that this practice of not paying us our due be stopped.”

Management had argued unsuccessfully that the supervisors, as part of management, were exempt from time-and-a-half wages.

But Adams and his co-workers showed that they are actually working as hourly, instead of salaried, employees.

Kennard R. Smart Jr., OCTA’s lawyer, said the settlement was dictated by recent federal court decisions in similar cases.

Adams said it was one such case, involving the San Bernardino Fire Department, that had encouraged him to seek back pay.

In approving the new, three-year wage agreement with the Transportation Communications Union, OCTA board members said that they were not anxious to raise wages, given the currently depressed labor market, but that they again followed the advice of their staff.

TCU members had already ratified the pact April 2.