Point Austin: Nobody in Charge

"We had no choice but to strike – we couldn't just take what they were offering us, rather than strike. Every contract negotiation after that, they would have felt they could just shove stuff down our throat, without us fighting back. It was about fighting back."

That was Jay Wyatt this week, a couple of days after the Friday night settlement between Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1091, the bus drivers and mechanics union, and the Capital Metro transit agency. As I write Wednesday, the union members are voting on the proposed contract, which Wyatt said he would be recommending as the best available resolution. To add insult to the injury of already lost workdays, the workers awoke Wednesday morning to a condescending lecture from the Statesman editors ("Capital Metro workers should OK contract") telling them to vote yes. If the workers didn't have families to support and bills to pay, I suspect that smug dismissal alone would stick in enough craws to make them reject the contract. As it is, after 18 months of virtually fruitless negotiations – and the visible prospect that management was willing to hold out until the union was broken – the union achieved a four-year deal (retroactive to 2007) that, according to reported summaries, compromised on health insurance and back pay in return for an increased bonus and small but consistent raises over the next three years.

That they got a contract at all is no small achievement, and it's little thanks to the elected officials who compose the bulk of the Capital Metro board of directors. If it hadn't been for board and City Council Member Mike Martinez, who initially proposed a temporary compromise deal two weeks ago (seconded by Brewster McCracken and state Reps. Eddie Rodriguez and Dawnna Dukes), and then state Sen. Kirk Watson, who by request parachuted into the negotiations Friday evening, the deal wouldn't have gotten done. Management (nominally subcontractor StarTran, but transparently Cap Metro president and CEO Fred Gilliam and his chief outside negotiator, Tom Hock) has been able to intimidate other board members into sitting on their hands, on the absurd argument that the board members are "third parties" who must stay out of the way. (On this logic, Gilliam is his own third party, who can direct the negotiations without visibly getting his hands dirty.)

That is pure-dee union-busting horseshit, and any board member who out of misunderstanding or cowardice claims to believe it (for starters, Margaret Gomez and John Treviño) should have the decency to resign and let somebody with a spine take his or her place.

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Eyes at the Capitol

Thank God neither Martinez nor Watson swallowed the company line, and with the indispensable help of these "outsiders" (and at least the public support of a few others), a deal got done. Several sources close to the negotiations say progress was being made by midday Friday, and a deal was near, when StarTran's Terry Garcia Crews returned from a break suddenly intransigent – you can guess what happened in the meantime. Lee Leffingwell, standing in for Martinez (readying to be married Saturday and now on his honeymoon), transmitted the request to Watson, who arrived as a mediator and made it clear to both sides that an agreement would be reached that night.

Watson is reluctant to speak in detail on the record, saying his role as mediator requires him to stand to one side. He did say that in such circumstances, the two sides are often locked into "talking past each other," and he sees his role as helping them back to direct communication. For the record, he told me: "I thought the union did a good job of trying to figure out how to get to the end. I was pleased to get the opportunity to come in and help clarify positions and help set some goals that led to the conclusion. But ultimately, my hat is off to the union for doing a good job getting to where they needed to get."

It's also clear that Watson's position at the Legislature was not lost on the two parties, especially management. Capital Metro is a creation of the Lege, and if the agency cannot keep its own house in order, it's entirely appropriate for the state to step in and sort things out – it might begin next year with an independent audit. It's probably too much to wish that one fine day Texas would come to its senses and support collective bargaining at state agencies, since the current law forbidding it is nothing more than a take-it-or-leave-it management bludgeon. That law enabled the union-busting foot-dragging by Cap Metro over the last 18 months, saving it wage money while the workers waited for a resolution.

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Leadership Vacuum

The transit workers union is hardly an intimidating labor behemoth. It is a small group of working men and women trying to keep their heads above water, paycheck to paycheck, and in their dogged solidarity fighting for all the rest of us who work for a living. The $1,200 in back "bonus" they won – to make up for a year of lost buying power without a raise – will pay for some plumbing or car repairs, fix the roof, or maybe seed the kids' college fund, while Cap Metro doesn't have to calculate it into future, less-than-cost-of-living raises. In return, the agency gets to continue spending multimillions on elaborate, heavily taxpayer-subsidized suburban rail plans, from which it has brazenly attempted to exclude unionized workers. In that context, why should an Austinite give one damn (or future vote) for their commuter rail? And meanwhile, as the livelihoods and daily transportation of mostly Austin citizens are threatened by union-busting management, a board comprising mainly elected public officials wants to look the other way.

This nonsense has to stop. Wyatt and the union are to be congratulated both for bravely striking and then for coming to agreement in a suddenly difficult economic time; management can be credited for finally, under duress, seeing the light. We can thank Martinez (and McCracken, Leffingwell, and the others) for speaking up for the workers and the public. And we should applaud Wat­son for intervening directly when it appeared the whole process might founder.

I wish I could say a kind word for the rest of the Cap Metro board, which distinguished itself largely by hiding under the table. If that's what they consider leadership, they should crawl out from their hidey-holes and get the hell out of the way.