Transit Workers Expected to Reject Contract Offer

North County Transit District workers are expected to vote down a new contract offer today.

“It is going to be rejected flatly. It was a very bad-faith effort on the part of the district,” said James Banks, chairman of Local 81 of the United Transportation Union.

Rejection of the offer will mean that employees would be working without a contract after midnight tonight, when the old accord expires. Although workers will remain on the job, union officials did not rule out a strike by the district’s more than 450 bus drivers, mechanics and dispatchers.

Union representatives said wages and benefits have been the major sticking points during two months of negotiations.

Employees are seeking increased benefits and a 12% pay raise over the next three years. They said that would put them on a par with other transit workers in the region.

“We are behind most of the transit systems in California, and have been for a lot of years,” Banks said.

Pete Aadland, the district’s marketing officer, declined comment on contract negotiation specifics but said economic hard times had hurt the North County’s bus line.

The district, which serves an estimated 30,000 riders a day throughout North San Diego County, is subsidized by county, state and federal funds, Aadland said.

The district last raised bus fares in 1990 by 5 cents, and the next increase will go into effect in January, from 85 cents to $1, Aadland said. Transfers, which now cost 25 cents, will be free under the new fare structure.

Negotiations between the employees and the district began May 1 and were suspended Monday, Banks said.

The contract offer fr o m the district includes a 5% pay increase and $7 more a year per worker toward health benefits over the next three years, Banks said. The union asked that the current contract be extended 60 days, but the district refused, Banks said.

According to figures provided by the employees’ union, the hourly wages of drivers and mechanics at the North County Transit District rank 15th among the 19 transit districts in the state. The $13.53 hourly rate of bus drivers in the district is 9.6% lower than the statewide mean, the figures showed.