MTA, Drivers Reach Accord on New Pact

Everyone appears to have gained something from the new transit pact hammered out between the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and its drivers union shortly before dawn Tuesday:

The MTA and its new chairman, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, get the labor peace they dearly need. The drivers have maintained jobs, wages and benefits while creating an opportunity to build their union’s membership base. And, for riders, the agreement offers the potential of more money for bus improvements.

The 4,200-member United Transportation Union’s rank and file still must ratify the agreement. The proposed contract also must be approved by the MTA board.

Both sides declined to discuss precise details of the agreement, reached shortly after 4 a.m., though its major points could be gleaned from interviews with participants and knowledgeable officials.

Riordan said Tuesday that the tentative agreement allows the union to meet its goals of protecting the jobs, wages and benefits of existing drivers and prevent any reduction in union members. “But they also recognized that we needed to have efficiencies if we’re going to be able to add bus service,” he said.

Acting MTA chief Linda Bohlinger said the proposed contract offers an “employee-friendly way” for the MTA to provide more economical bus service.

The deal reportedly allows the MTA to seek to reduce the cost of operating certain lines by using newly hired union drivers paid $10 an hour instead of the $19 an hour received by veteran drivers.

The drivers union will have the right of first refusal to take over the lines where costs are high and ridership is low. If the union declines to bid on the work, the MTA can seek contracts with private bus companies, said a source close to the negotiations.

The tentative agreement would save the agency at least $20 million over the next three years, according to officials.

A Riordan aide said the agreement provides a way to put more buses on the street for less money.

MTA officials say they believed the union saw the concept of lower-salaried drivers as preferable to the MTA seeking to turn over bus lines to private contractors or simply eliminating the lines.

County supervisor and MTA board member Mike Antonovich had been a critic of the MTA’s overall transportation agenda, saying it gave short shrift to many bus riders, especially those in “periphery” areas, such as his northern county constituents. But the tentative agreement, Antonovich said, will “save money, provide additional [bus] services to the underserved areas and to provide a stable work environment.”

County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, acting MTA chairwoman in the absence of the vacationing Riordan, said she expects it will be ratified.

Miguel Contreras, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, an umbrella labor organization, said he too was glad a strike had been averted and that the terms seemed mostly acceptable.

But Contreras said he was concerned that some new bus drivers might be stuck in a “second-tier” system without the same pay and benefits.

Transit officials say the agreement is good for union drivers because it guarantees no layoffs, no cuts in wages or benefits, and provides a 9% to 10% pay raise over the next three years. They said the agency already has different wage rates for drivers depending on when they were hired--implemented through previous negotiations.

Talks continue with unions representing clerks and mechanics.