[Transport] PAT Bd. Imposes "Final Best" Contract on Transit Union

[Glenn A. Walsh]

On Friday afternoon, the Port Authority of Allegheny County Board of Directors voted unanimously (with one Board vacancy) to impose their "final best" labor contract offer on operators, maintenance and other personnel of Pittsburgh's Port Authority Transit (PAT) system; the new contract terms would take effect on Dec. 1. This action came after months of negotiations in which management and labor could not reach a concensus on a new labor agreement.

At the regular, monthly PAT Board meeting (which was delayed from the normally scheduled morning time), PAT CEO Steve Bland stated that there was an "impasse" in negotiations, which he stated provided the Board of Directors with the legal means to unilaterally impose the new contract on PAT workers.

Speaking to the media just outside of the Board Room, following the Board meeting, Pat McMahon, President and Business Agent of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 85, said he believed the unilateral action was illegal and said a court challenge was likely. He said that the Union, earlier on Friday, had filed a "failing to bargain in good faith" complaint with the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board.

When asked if the Transit Union would take a strike vote, Mr. McMahon said, "We care about the citizens of Allegheny County and our riders. "We're not going to do that to them." However, when another reporter asked whether the employees would accept the new contract terms, come December 1, Mr. McMahon said that the Union did not want to strike, but that PAT management was painting the Union into a corner.

Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato has been withholding the County's annual transit subsidy, derived from the recently enacted taxes on "poured drinks" and on automobile rentals, until the Transit Union agreed to concessions to help PAT's poor financial situation. December 1 had been proposed as a date the entire Pittsburgh transit system would shut-down, without the Union's agreement to alternate contract terms.

With the imposition of a new contract on Dec. 1, this may satisfy the County Executive and the County's annual subsidy, needed to leverage a much larger amount of State subsidy, may be released to PAT. However, as of this writing, Mr. Onorato has not stated if the needed County funds would be released.

You can find out much more about this situation at the following link. In addition to recent newspaper stories, this web page includes the most recent labor negotiating offers by both PAT and the Transit Union, in addition to PAT's official news release regarding the PAT Board of Director's action on Friday:

< http://andrewcarnegie2.tripod.com/transit/pat/2007fundingcrisis.html#tnews2 >

gaw

Glenn A. Walsh, Project Director,
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