Negotiations are over.
After months of bargaining with the City of Gainesville to improve pay for Regional Transit System workers, the group protecting bus employees, Amalgamated Transit Union, declared an impasse at the latest city hall proceedings Tuesday afternoon.
Negotiations started in October, but after about an hour of discussing contract proposals, the union refused to accept the city’s proposed 1.5 percent pay increase.
Mary Frances Folz Donahue, president of Gainesville’s ATU chapter, said she was disappointed with the outcome.
“Today they clarified that they’re absolutely opposed to any sort of pay progression,” she said. “This is a continuation of this failed policy of keeping wages really low.”
The union was fighting to get pay progression in the contract, Donahue said. She said the highest pay an RTS driver can make is $16.92 per hour, but the majority are making in the $12 to $13 range.
“You have people that have been there for 15 years not making top pay,” she said.
According to calculations made by ATU, the average top pay of fixed-rate transit operators in Florida and Georgia is an hourly wage of $17.96. RTS wages fall at the bottom of those calculations.
Local activist Jeremiah Tattersall said the city needs to consider the numbers.
“Now we have the unfortunate title of worst-compensated transit operators in Florida and Georgia,” Tattersall said.
The city offered the 1.5 percent pay increase for all city workers, but Tattersall said RTS deserves reconsideration because unattractive wages are repelling employees.
“Other city workers don’t have a recruitment problem,” he said. “They don’t have a retention problem like RTS.”
As a result of the deadlock, Donahue said a third party appointed by the state will look at both sides and present its findings. However, the City Commission will ultimately make the decision after looking at the new information.
Gainesville’s ATU chapter has about 100 due-paying members, but represents more than 200 workers, Donahue said.
Before the negotiations, Donahue and Tattersall, joined by about 10 unionists, RTS workers and UF students, stood at City Hall holding signs for the cause.
“We’re here because we’re betting on Gainesville,” Donahue said. “The other side is betting on a recession.”
UF student Eric Brown, a lead organizer for Students for a Democratic Society, stood alongside the unionists outside city hall. The 20-year-old political science junior said it was only natural to come out and support RTS workers.
“It’s easy because basically we see bus drivers as a key part of our UF experience,” Brown said.
RTS spokesman Chip Skinner declined to comment after the meeting.
[A version of this story ran on page 4 on 1/29/2014 under the headline "Negotiations between union, city stall over RTS wages"]
