VTA Slightly Boosts Raise Offer, Union Says It Falls Far Short

The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority is offering striking transit workers 11% raises over three years, a half a percentage point increase from the agency’s prior bid.

At a press conference Sunday following a special-closed session meeting, VTA Board Chair and Campbell Mayor Sergio Lopez said the offer would not include overtime pay for sick and injury time.

“It is, as I shared, a significant stretch of our resources,” said Lopez. “But we are committed to our riders and to the public, to getting to resolution, to ending the strike, and getting riders back on the road.”

Raj Singh, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 265, was pessimistic about the offer’s chance with workers, describing it as a meager wage increase accompanied by several steps backward in others areas — including overtime, as well as what he called a verbal promise from VTA leadership to include a memo containing assurances that the agency will not discipline or sue striking workers.

A VTA spokesperson confirmed to KQED that the memo was not included in the Sunday offer.

“The agency has been saying that the ATU leadership is the one that’s holding … negotiations hostage,” Singh said. “So we were going to remove ourselves from the conversation and let the members decide.”

The more than 1,500 transit workers were originally slated to vote on the VTA’s previous offer — 10.5% raises over three years — on Sunday, but Singh said the agency asked them to hold off after it decided to hold the special meeting.

He criticized the fairness of wages at VTA, saying supervisors and upper management are “essentially making double what our employees are making.”

But VTA officials said their latest offer could cause financial pain for the agency.

“Whichever number, whether a previous offer or now at 11 [percent], there’s going to have to be difficult conversations about our fiscal responsibility to maintain service and protect that for our riders while also making sure that we’re offering a fair package,” Lopez said.

Singh said the union last offered to accept 15% wage increases over three years, but said “the agency would not budge.”