The vote of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 587 membership is in. Its 3800 members approved the new labor contract with a 69% yes vote. About two-thirds of members voted. All that remains is a vote of the King County Council.
John wrote up the main contract provisions last week. According to press release, the cost savings amounts to 130,000 service hours, or a fifth of the projected 600,000 hour shortfall in 2015. That is a huge and important step towards resolving the Metro budget crisis.
Transit operators are to be thanked for honoring the need to serve the people of King County with as much service as possible, whether they perceived that as in their self-interest or not. Here’s to hoping that other stakeholders — voters, the State Legislature, the King County Council, and neighborhood interests — exhibit similar community spirit and enlightened self-interest when more change comes to Metro.
More related documents than you can stand are prominently featured on the ATU 587 website.
The Union leadership is to be congratulated. This contract seems fair to all parties while improving efficiency. It’s not perfect and all of us (PT, FT, Vehicle Maintenance, and probably Rail and other classifications) can probably gripe about something.
If this plays out how I think it will, the only “loser” here will be the union itself as there will be fewer members as attrition thins the ranks of part-timers.
All this said, it will be interesting to see how the contract is implemented. I’m hopeful that the next 3 years will alleviate fears many Full-Time drivers have that Metro will just break up work and give it to part-timers to “save money”. Those arguments have never made sense to me and I’m confident this contract will show that line of reasoning to be grossly inaccurate. The new provision allowing drivers to move back to part-time status without loss of seniority are also welcome. I heard 2 full-time drivers discussing doing just that. Again, it will be interesting to see how this all shakes out.
I’m with you velobusdriver…I hope this contract works for all of us with minimal griping afterall, we do have jobs.