San Jose, Calif.—On Monday, March 10, 1,500 Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 265 members who work in Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) went on strike, the first since the company’s founding in 1973.
The ATU and VTA entered negotiations in August. A key concern the ATU raised is arbitration and wages. Transit workers intended to finish talks by March to avoid working with an expired contract, a move that would save the company thousands as their employees would not receive retrograde pay. The move was not respected.
The ATU initially demanded a 24% raise over 3 years before lowering it to a modest 18% over the same period. As talks reached an impasse, ATU pointed out that management had received anywhere from a $18,000 to $80,000 raise, and the company responded with a 9% raise.
For several years, Greg Richardson and others who work in management and the administration have received class and compensation raises, among others, while not offering them to the workers.
To determine the percentage of raises, VTA bought a “Classification & Compensation Study, and Workforce Development” in 2022. Because of this study, Richardson and Carolyn Gonot, the CEO, offered the transit workers a $0.01/hour raise during the negotiations. They claimed that VTA workers are among the highest in the Bay Area. However, some members of management received a raise within the range of $20,000 to $80,000, in addition to bonuses.
Regarding arbitration, a representative from the ATU, Ashley Olvera, a shop steward, stated that arbitration is a top priority. She explained, “They are trying to take away our rights as a union to arbitrate certain things. They basically do not want to give us our due and fair processes and make us at-will employees, where they decide and dictate what happens and if they can fire us on the spot or not.” She reiterated that the strike was not about wages; if it were, they would have settled already.
On benefits, Jobin Gidult, another employee, explained that currently, if an individual has a disability issue, they can keep their job after two years; VTA wants to reduce that to a single year. Regarding this reduction, Gidult continued, “If you are not able to come back, they could terminate you.”
Olvera and Gidult communicated that their pay does not allow them to live in San Jose. It is a story that is all too familiar to people: people need to live outside the city to work here, often commuting as far as Modesto or Los Banos to survive. On average, most VTA drivers earn roughly $91K a year, which is hardly enough to live in San Jose.
On March 11, the VTA sued the striking workers for violating their expired contract. They claimed that the company was not notified of the union’s actions and that the ATU violated the contract. As of March 17, the Santa Clara County Superior Court shut down the injunction. However, representatives of the ATU Local 265 will appear in court on March 26 to explain why an injunction is unnecessary. The union is disappointed in the company’s underhanded tactics to end the strike rather than make a deal.
ATU Local 265 continues to stress the importance of community support in winning the strike.
If individuals want to support ATU, they can go to the Action Network and fill out a form to demand that VTA come to the table and negotiate.
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