Months after they authorized a strike saying that a proposed contract offering lump-sum payments and no retroactive raises was a nonstarter, Akron METRO bus drivers agreed to a six-year contract that includes retroactive pay increases, raises for the duration of the agreement and a signing bonus.
The contract was approved in a 220-41 vote Friday afternoon. If METRO’s board approves it next week at its regular meeting, it will go into effect immediately.
“It’s been a long, hard fight,” TWU Local 1 President Wayne Cole said after the votes were counted. “It’s a relief.”
The successful contract vote a fact-finder’s report that union workers rejected in a 294-2 vote. That report would have given workers a $3,500 payment and one 4 percent raise, but no retroactive raises for the two years they worked without a contract.
Instead, bus drivers and other members of Transport Workers Union Local 1 will get an average of $8,300 in retroactive pay, not including overtime, the union said in a statement. The contract, which is retroactive to June 2024, includes 3 percent% raises each year for the two years employees worked without a contract. Wages will increase 3.5 percent this year and next year and 3 percent for the following two years. The contract runs through May 2030.
Lloyd Melton, a bus operator for 20 years who voted against the contract, said as costs continue to rise, he thinks the union should have continued to push for higher raises.
“To be honest, I think it could be better,” he said.
In a statement announcing the agreement, the union said a bus operator making $66,500 today would make $80,200 by the end of the contract.
“The terms of this contract are light years better than what the fact finder recommended and what Akron Metro was looking to impose, including two years without raises,” said Curtis Tate, the TWU International administrative vice president, in a statement. “We rejected that 100% and stood our ground.”
He called the agreement “a major victory for the hard-working men and women who provide vital bus service to Akron and the surrounding communities.”
Additionally, union members will get a $2,000 signing bonus and a $2,000 annual attendance bonus, twice the previous annual attendance bonus.
“Once management realized workers were organized and ready to take strike action, they buckled,” Cole said in the statement.
METRO board to vote Tuesday
A spokesperson for METRO said he could not discuss details of the proposed agreement, but that its board of trustees would vote on it Tuesday, during their regularly scheduled meeting.
METRO workers voted 269-1 to authorize a strike June 30 after the METRO board agreed in an 11-1 vote to accept the fact-finder’s report. The strike vote came after years of failed contract negotiations.
The union represents 311 bus operators, vehicle service workers and clerical workers. The agreement includes an increase in costs to workers’ health insurance premiums, but in the statement, TWU Local 1 said those increases were dwarfed by the significant wage increases and will remain flat for the duration of the agreement.
Cole said healthcare costs would increase for employees by about $80 per paycheck. He said the union had compromised on a sick time policy that would require employees to take leave if they were out of work for more than six months. The union also did not get Juneteenth to be recognized as a holiday, as it had asked.
Still, Cole said, what METRO offered had enough value that he and others thought they had to present it to members for a vote, he said.
“I feel very good about it,” he said. “I think it’s a good contract. We feel like it was fair.”
Rachel A. Barnett, a bus operator and an executive board member with the union, also voted in favor of the contract. She said it wasn’t everything that she and others wanted, but it was still “doable.”
“I took an inventory of what’s good for me and my family and the pros are better than the cons,” she said.
Cole said workers were prepared to strike and their willingness to do so helped force a better contract than what the fact-finder’s report would have suggested. The contract employees ratified was a major improvement, he said.
Cole credited workers for continuing to stand strong, including speaking at METRO board meetings and gaining the support of riders.
“We fought back and drove the economic value of the contract much higher than the bosses ever thought possible,” TWU International President John Samuelsen said in the statement. “We put together a strategic campaign with Local 1 leadership, executed the plan, and secured a contract that gives workers the respect and economic advancement they deserve.”
