A proposal that fails to give Akron bus drivers retroactive raises for 2024 and 2025 is “really not acceptable,” said Wayne Cole, president of Transport Workers Union Local 1.
“I sense it’s going to be overwhelmingly rejected,” Cole said Friday of a fact-finder’s report, delivered this week, that suggested the unit’s more than 300 workers get a lump-sum payment of $3,500 to make up for years without raises.
“They’re angry, they want a resolution, but they feel like this is an insult,” Cole said.
The long-awaited report, by an arbitrator for the State Employment Relations Board, comes as the union and Summit County’s Metro Regional Transit Authority have failed to come to an agreement on their contract. If more than three-fifths of union members reject the arbitrator’s report in a vote to be held Monday and Tuesday, Cole said, he expects employees to vote to strike.
If that happens, Cole said, workers would likely be on strike until a contract is agreed to.
Raise proposed, but only for one year
METRO’s board will vote on the same fact-finder’s proposal Monday, said Grace Doyle, a spokesperson for the agency. She said in an email that METRO was reviewing the fact-finding report, but she didn’t comment on its content. The report was issued Wednesday by fact-finder Michelle Miller-Kotula.
Miller-Kotula heard from METRO and union representatives in November about the sticking points in the contract. Her report deals with pay as well as working conditions, time off and other issues.
Cole said he had expected Miller-Kotula to “split the baby” when it came to what she proposed each side compromise on, but he contends that’s not what happened.
The report said the proposed $3,500 payment would help achieve “a prompt and efficient resolution” to the issue of back pay in order to avoid “the substantial administrative burden, expense, and potential payroll complications associated with retroactive wage calculations and payroll corrections while providing employees with timely compensation.”
Miller-Kotula also proposed a 4% pay rate increase for bus operators effective June 1.
But another proposal, that would increase union members’ share of healthcare costs, would consume most of that raise, Cole said. And a lump sum payment “pales in comparison” to a wage increase, he said.
“If you don’t have a raise two years in a row, the money never compounds, it never grows,” he said.
The report is a nonbinding recommendation. Even if employees vote to strike, Cole said, they can continue to negotiate.
The union and METRO each had some wins in Miller-Kotula’s proposal. For one, METRO wanted the contract to be valid for three years after it was ratified; Miller-Kotula agreed with the union that it should go through May 2027.
The union wanted an increase in members’ annual uniform allowance, much of which was granted in Miller-Kotula’s proposal.
Changing sick time policy for union members
Over and over again, the discussion in the 40-page report references a “sick card” policy that METRO said leads to high absenteeism and needs to change.
Under the policy, Cole said, union members have 10 “cards” they can use to call off sick for up to 90 days at a time. Cole said members don’t have other paid time off and are working public-facing jobs where they may get sick; in the report, METRO said a proposed paid-time-off policy would help improve efficiency.
Miller-Kotula said in the report that she encouraged changes in the policy, but her report wasn’t the place to do it.
“The benefits enjoyed related to sick cards have been accepted by both parties through multiple bargaining cycles,” she wrote. “In order to change and revamp this system, it may require administrative changes, policy revisions, software updates and employee education and ongoing oversight. These transition costs may outweigh the perceived benefits if significant and immediate changes occur without consideration of the entire process.”
What happens if METRO bus operators vote to strike?
Cole said all union members are required to vote in person over two days. If someone is on vacation or otherwise chooses not to vote, they are counted as a “yes” for the sake of the vote total.
He said union leaders can only give members the facts, but he doesn’t think members’ frustration will be assuaged by what’s on the table.
If members reject the proposal, they can then vote to strike — and workers have been warning about a possible strike for months. In February, TWU representatives wrote to Akron Mayor Shammas Malik and other local officials saying “a strike is a very real possibility.”
In Ohio, Cole said, a strike vote requires 51% of membership. The union is then required to give the employer 10 days’ notice.
Cole said if there is a strike, he would expect it to continue until a contract resolution is reached — but he hopes negotiations would continue for that 10-day period.
“It’s a bit hard to predict,” he said of the end result. “Monetary is always going to be the baseline for most people. Zero and zero [percent raise], that’s a hard sell.”
