VTA Strike Stretches Into 11th Day, Agency Says Progress Being Made in Talks

As the historic strike by Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority workers stretches into its 11th day, the transit agency said progress is being made at the negotiating table on key sticking points, and talks were continuing Thursday.

More than 1,500 bus drivers and train operators, as well as maintenance workers and dispatchers represented by the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 265, have been off the job since March 10 over contract talks that stalled early this month.

The strike has halted bus and light rail service throughout Santa Clara County, forcing tens of thousands of daily riders to find alternate transportation.

However, a VTA official said talks went well on Wednesday after negotiators for the agency and the union met for more than seven hours.

“We feel like we made some progress,” Stacey Hendler Ross, an agency spokesperson, said Thursday morning. “There was a compromise on what the union said was their biggest issue, and that was the arbitration issue. So that hopefully has been settled, and they’re moving on to other issues.”

Union President Raj Singh did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday.

Throughout the strike, Singh and other union members have said that one of the major issues for the labor group is the way arbitration is handled with the agency when a worker files a grievance.

The union alleged the agency held too much power to unilaterally avoid or delay going to an arbitrator to decide how some of those cases would be resolved and had proposed changes to shift the balance of power, which the agency had resisted.

Hendler Ross declined to share specifics on the compromise that was reached, noting that it’s all tentative until both parties sign a new contract.

The union also previously bristled at proposed changes from VTA to reduce long-term injury or illness leave from two years to one, and the two sides have consistently remained far apart on wages.

The agency’s last publicized offer to the union was for 9% raises over three years, with 4% granted in the first year of the contract, followed by 3% and 2% subsequently. The union’s most recent publicized ask was for 18% raises over the same time period, with 6% in each year.

While some of the talks last week between the agency and the union included a mediator, Hendler Ross said the talks on Wednesday and talks that were scheduled to begin at noon on Thursday are standard negotiations without mediators.

The union held a rally on Monday afternoon with other labor groups, urging VTA to come back to the negotiating table after written proposals were exchanged over the weekend. Singh said the union waited for a call from the agency all day Monday and Tuesday but didn’t receive one.

Singh said Tuesday afternoon he was concerned about the agency’s apparent “lack of urgency” while the strike continued.

Monday evening, the agency issued a statement saying it “is committed to moving beyond the rhetoric to focus on constructive actions to finalize a contract.”

The agency also alleged the strike violated the no-strike clause in the bargaining agreement between the union and VTA and filed a lawsuit on March 10 asking a judge to issue a temporary restraining order to force workers back to their jobs while negotiations continued. A county judge shot that request down on Monday.

Hendler Ross said Thursday that the VTA always has hope that when the agency and union meet to negotiate, it will result in something good.

“We continue to hold out that hope because we want to get our workers back to work, back on the road, so we can get our passengers where they need to go,” she said.