Leveraging the threat of a crippling strike during the Super Bowl, 2,500 local transit workers begin voting Sunday on a new contract that would raise wages and improve safety on the job.
Union leadership recommended they approve the deal, following tense negotiations and heated rallies at Metropolitan Council meetings throughout the week. The labor dispute brought attention to what Metro Transit drivers say is an unsafe workplace, where passengers physically assault them and many suffer through the stress of inadequate bathroom breaks.
"We want respect in the workplace," said Mark Lawson, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1005.
The proposed contract increases wages by 2.5 percent per year, over three years, and leaves health care plans untouched. A third-year bus driver making $45,115 today would earn $57,679 by the year three of the contract, not including average overtime of $8,400 a year, according to the council.
The push for improved safety conditions resulted in the installation of protective plexiglass beside the driver's seat in 21 buses, starting this week, to see how they work.
Improving the workstation of bus drivers has been a priority of the international Amalgamated Transit Union in Washington, which asked local unions this fall to express support for changes. International ATU President Larry Hanley said the coming Super Bowl was a chance to give the issue attention.
"What the transit industry is doing is making us play without headgear, without helmets and without padding," Hanley said. "They're making us just go out there and take the beating."
'We aren't safe'
Metro Transit data show there have been 72 felony-level assaults on bus drivers since 2010, which are the most serious out of more than 1,000 assault and harassment incidents over that period. Drivers are spit on roughly 35 times per year, an act that became a gross misdemeanor in 2013.