After months of work and negotiations, Capital Metro board member Lee Leffingwell‘s proposal to bring all employees in-house and end outsourcing at the agency passed unanimously this week. With a provision that strips the transit authority’s biggest union of its right to strike, however, the City Council member may have a hard sell in getting the union to sign off.
The centerpiece of the resolution is a “memorandum of understanding” between Cap Metro and Amalgamated Transit Union 1091, where the union would trade its bargaining status for a “meet-and-confer” agreement similar to what Austin’s police and firefighter contracts are negotiated under. The agreement also puts an end to the outsourcing of jobs on Cap Metro’s coming passenger rail and directs staff to explore ways to bring all employees under the Cap Metro banner. The bulk of Cap Metro’s employees are contractors for StarTran, a front company created to resolve state law prohibiting public companies from union negotiations. In a letter to his fellow board members, Leffingwell applauded their support, saying, “There could soon be meaningful dialog about how to unify our transit-system workforce and establish a direct relationship between labor and management.”
The disconnect between Cap Metro and StarTran has been a source of tension in contract negotiation. But for now, it’s a distinction the union isn’t ready to let go of. “We don’t really give a shit about the right to strike,” says 1091 President Jay Wyatt, calling it a last resort. “We just don’t want to give it up for nothing.” Noting that ATU 1091 is the biggest – and possibly only – transportation union in Texas with the right to bargain, Wyatt doesn’t want to abandon it for a likely weaker hand in meet-and-confer negotiations without a backup. If not the right to strike, it would have to be a form of binding dispute resolution, which would have to be pursued at the state level. Otherwise, what Wyatt fears the union could lose by becoming Cap Metro employees – like the promise of keeping rail jobs in house – isn’t worth it. Wyatt notes that an arbitration scheduled for June 21 should decide who gets the rail jobs, not the agreement. “I’m interested in taking that gamble,” he says.
So while it may seem like streamlining the company-within-a-company at Cap Metro was a no-brainer, reformers like Leffingwell may soon find themselves assailed from all sides. “We definitely appreciate Council Members Leffingwell and Brewster McCracken. They mean well; they have good intentions,” Wyatt says. “But they’re only two people – what about the other people on the board?”
This article appears in March 23 • 2007.