Newsom Should Intervene in VTA Strike, Expert Says

Updated 3:45 p.m. Friday

A flurry of court filings this week is revealing more of the apparent bad blood between the South Bay’s lead transit agency and its largest labor union amid a historic strike over contract negotiations.

The Amalgamated Transit Union Local 265, which represents more than 1,500 bus drivers, train operators and maintenance workers, and the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, have both accused the other of causing the strike and of bad-faith bargaining.

Meanwhile, as bus and light rail services are at a standstill for a fifth straight day, forcing tens of thousands to find alternative ways to get around, some labor law experts say the courts may not be the best route to end the strike, and the governor should step in to move things along.

“The business of jaw-jawing and discussing is always better than warfare, which can be harmful to the public,” William B. Gould IV, a professor emeritus at Stanford Law School, said of the ongoing dispute. Gould was the former chair of the National Labor Relations Board from 1994 to 1998.

Gould said he was “puzzled” that the governor hasn’t gotten involved yet to help mediate between the parties or, if necessary, to order a panel to do fact-finding.

VTA officials said they plan to pursue the governor’s involvement for a possible “cooling off period,” which could pause the strike while negotiations continue.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the situation.

“I would think that the time is right and propitious for the governor to intervene,” Gould said.

For all of Thursday and part of Friday, the union and the agency met with a mediator for the first negotiations since the strike began, according to Raj Singh, the union president. However, a resolution was not able to be reached, and no further talks were scheduled as of Friday afternoon.

The VTA, in a complaint filed in court late Monday night, followed by several more supporting filings on Wednesday and Thursday, claims the union is violating the “no-strike clause” of a collective bargaining agreement between the agency and the union.

The agency alleges the union did not give VTA proper notice it wanted to end or change the agreement, which expired on March 3, and claims the no-strike conditions are in full effect for another year while negotiations for a new contract continue.

The union, for its part, responded Thursday in a filing asking the judge to reject the VTA’s request. The union claims it’s clear the contract rules are no longer applicable because bargaining for a new contract had ended, as neither side budged off their last, best and final offers, and the union declared an impasse a few days before the strike began.

The law firm representing the VTA deferred comment to the agency, and the attorneys representing the ATU did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

“Both sides clearly have different interpretations of the contract language,” Greg Richardson, the deputy general manager for VTA, said Wednesday during a news conference. “Our belief is the current contract, although beyond its term, remains in full force during negotiations, and as such, the no strike clause is still in effect.”

Richardson said the lawsuit is one more attempt the agency is making to try and get service back for the tens of thousands of riders who depend on it.

Raj Singh, the president of ATU Local 265, said the lawsuit shows the “true colors” of the agency’s leadership and said VTA has “pushed us to this point” by wasting months of bargaining time ahead of the strike.

“Instead of trying to resolve this immediately, they’re choosing to litigate and go the long route. I hope that the public is seeing this,” Singh said Wednesday.

The agency’s filings accuse the union of “bad faith behavior” at the bargaining table and said for negotiations to work, the union must “want to act in the interest of the great public they serve and understand that their public agency employer’s financial means are limited by available public tax dollars,” the filing said. “The sooner that ATU remembers this, the better.”

While the legal fight plays out in the courts, one labor expert said a judge should not intervene in this dispute between workers and their employer.

Robert Ovetz, a senior political science lecturer at San José State University who teaches labor relations in the Master’s of Public Administration program, said there’s a long history of courts being used to break strikes and bust unions, especially before the passage of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935.

“Ultimately, the only real tool that workers have in asserting their interests is to stop working, to go on strike,” Ovetz said. “And so it would be very, very problematic for a judge to step in and then prevent them from being able to use that.”

Ovetz said it seemed clear to him that negotiations had broken down when the strike was started, and he thinks a judge wouldn’t have a basis to grant an injunction to stop the strike. The best way to end the dispute is to simply return to bargaining, he said.

As of Friday morning, the VTA said no date was set for an initial court hearing, and a judge was not assigned to the case.