VIA Metropolitan Transit workers rallied outside of VIA headquarters before a board of trustees meeting on Wednesday to call on the board to reject an effort by VIA management to cut out worker voices in wage talks.
As public employees in Texas, VIA workers can’t collectively bargain or go on strike with their union. But since the 1970s, VIA and the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) have gone through a process called meet and confer where management and union members come to a consensus on a document called the “working conditions policy” that includes issues like wages.
The union-management consensus agreement then goes to the board of trustees, which approves it.
But workers and union staff said VIA is trying to go back on decades of collaboration.
“Management has briefed you … [on] the direction that they are headed, but we haven’t been given an opportunity to have a seat at the table,” said Amalio Soto, ATU local 694’s financial secretary.
A statement from VIA’s Director of Communications Josh Baugh said VIA “has always worked in good faith with [ATU]” and that they continue to meet with the union to go over the working conditions document.
Rob Wohl, an ATU staff member, said VIA management told workers in these meetings that the company will not budge on its wage proposal, and it will send its own version of the working conditions document to the board without union input if the union doesn’t agree to it.
According to Wohl, that proposal is 10% over three years. Workers are asking for 40%.
And the union and VIA have starkly different views on how much VIA operators are actually being paid today.
“It's important to note that VIA’s operators are already the highest-paid in Texas, and when adjusted for cost of living, they’re also the highest-paid in the United States,” Baugh said in a statement.
But Wohl said VIA operators are actually the lowest paid in the state, and shared working conditions documents for transit workers at DART in Dallas and CapMetro in Austin, who ATU also represents.
Those documents showed that new VIA operators make $22.69 an hour after their first year, compared to $23.69 an hour at CapMetro and $24.61 an hour at DART.
It would take a new VIA operator 30 years to make $30.11 an hour, but DART operators exceed that pay after five years, when they make $30.77 an hour, according to the documents.
Baugh said VIA’s argument about its operators being the highest paid is due to the differences in the cost of living in the different cities.
ATU Local 694 President Brigido Almanza IV says all VIA workers want is a fair conversation about wages. “I’m not here to bash the company or anything like that, I just want them to realize that hey, we want to work with them,” he said. “We want to get through this and move on.”
District 5 Councilmember Teri Castillo and District 8 Councilmember Manny Peláez, who is running for mayor next year, attended the board of trustees meeting on Tuesday.
Castillo spoke to the board of trustees in defense of the VIA workers.
“My ask is to encourage you all to ensure that you approve something that has the consensus and support of ATU, and I'm hopeful and I know you are committed to ensuring that your employees receive the support that they need,” she said.
Castillo’s remarks were followed by applause from the dozens of VIA workers standing along the walls and sitting in the seats of the board room.
The ATU and VIA still have several meetings scheduled to work out the working conditions document.
