City leaders across the political spectrum enthusiastically promised that Proposition A would help everybody. All sides were supposedly on board for the key trade-off. The measure would assure Muni $26 million more per year from the general fund, while locking in operator annual wages at the average of the nation’s two highest-paid transit agencies.
In return, Muni labor would willingly accept work-rule changes allowing management more normal disciplinary powers over problem behavior such as chronic absenteeism or multiple accidents. At least that was the impression given by Proposition A backers. In retrospect, it now seems somewhat overlooked amid all the reform hoopla that the measure really didn’t guarantee any work-rule improvements.
So, now The City has its first post-proposition driver contract, and what a disappointment! If the springtime Muni negotiations were a high-stakes poker game, then Transit Workers Local 250-A seemingly won the big pot by bluffing. The union bargaining stance was that it was surprised and offended that management expected to take away “a whole shopping list of things” without offering more pay. The union team actually walked out on talks for some of June, saying they would wait for management “to call us with a better offer.”
Technically, the solution in July can be seen as a stalemate, with neither side taking a loss. It was agreed to simply extend the existing contract terms for another three years. But even before negotiations started, Proposition A gave the 1,900 transit operators a 2.2 percent raise to $27.9 per hour. That will cost The City some $3.3 million at a time when the general fund was just slashed to balance a $338 million deficit and as Muni faces a projected two-year shortfall of $80.7 million.
Meanwhile, those glaring job-discipline loopholes remain untouched. Driver work-absences records are wiped clean every eight months, while tardy drivers get a clean slate every five months. So even the worst offenders are unlikely to ever be suspended or terminated for their contributions to Muni delays.
The agency can be expected to continue failing to reach its voter mandated on-time performance rate of 85 percent, remaining stuck at 71 percent. Even the biggest Proposition A supporters on the Board of Supervisors — President Aaron Peskin and Sean Elsbernd — are crying foul. And Muni’s excuse is that it couldn’t afford to take away “money needed to invest in service improvements” and use it to coax drivers to accept job concessions that supposedly were already agreed on.



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