EVERETT – City administrators and the union representing about 100 Everett Transit employees have agreed on a new contract, after more than a year of stalled labor talks.
The three-year contract is retroactive to 2006 and includes across-the-board pay raises over the next two years. It also provides an extra vacation day and changes how health-care benefits are paid.
Everett Transit employees are paid between $11.39 an hour for a new ParaTransit operator to $25 an hour for an experienced bus driver.
Negotiations reached an impasse last year, triggering intervention by an impartial state mediator.
However, scheduling conflicts between the two parties prevented a swift resolution.
Steve Oss, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 883, said union members approved the contract, in part, because they are tired of waiting.
Amalgamated Transit Union represents about 70 bus drivers, 22 ParaTransit drivers, seven bus inspectors and seven light maintenance workers.
Oss said the bargaining group was close to asking that the contract talks be taken to binding arbitration.
Unlike mediation, where both sides work toward an agreement, arbitration requires both sides to make their case to a neutral third party, who then issues a decision everyone has no choice but to accept.
“Our members weren’t overly thrilled with this. They were satisfied,” Oss said.
The new contract resolves what has become a burning issue for some Amalgamated members since the mid-1990s.
At the time, union members voted on a contract that required them to share rising insurance premium costs with the city.
Oss said the insurance policy was presented as a nonnegotiable item that all city employees would eventually have to follow.
But when the other five city employee unions renewed their contracts, none saw deductions in their paychecks for coverage.
The new contract, approved by the City Council on Wednesday, eliminates employee contributions in favor of co-pay requirements and deductibles.
Sharon DeHaan, Everett’s labor-relations director, said the new salary rates put Everett Transit on par with Community Transit and other comparable transit agencies in the state.
Reporter David Chircop: 425-339-3429 or dchircop@heraldnet.com.
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