“It’s a crisis for our riders.”
MTS board member and National City Councilmember Marcus Bush is happy that one strike is over — but the other one is a month old.
Drivers, other employees and riders are paying the price. “Folks aren’t getting to work, not getting to school, their doctor’s appointments," Bush said.
As we reported Monday, the strike between members of Teamsters Local 683 was resolved over the weekend, after the MTS board agreed to kick in $1 million.
But the work stoppage by Teamsters Local 542 continues. They’re the drivers that operate the ACCESS paratransit and minibus service.
“We did as much as we could to help Transdev and the bus operators reach an agreement," said MTS Board Chairman, Stephen Whitburn.
It was Whitburn’s idea to kick in an extra $1 million to bring the Local 683 strike to a close. Board member Bush didn’t support the move.
“The reason I voted against that motion is ... I was also worried that it didn’t do enough to address the concerns of Teamsters Local 542," he said.
Bush said the board’s action to spend the million dollars leads to a bigger question of whether sub-contracting out to Transdev, or any third-party operator, is a sustainable model.
“Does it make sense to continue contracting services if, in the end, MTS and the public has to pay to subsidize this?" Bush asked.
Whitburn is asking that question too. He said he’s willing to consider contributing money — again — to end the current strike.
But what about ending the contract with Transdev, bringing the drivers and other contracted employees back in house?
MTS’s contract with Transdev runs through 2027, and unwinding things before then wouldn’t be easy, but board members are now seriously considering it.
“I think that we ought to have it in-house so that we can control those negotiations ourselves and do what we think is right by the bus operators and others who make that transportation system happen," Whitburn said.
But for now, the focus is on the people who operate and use the ACCESS paratransit and minibus services; getting the employees back to work and the riders back to using the service they count on to live everyday life.
