The bargaining team voted to sign a Tentative Agreement! The TA is final after the bargaining unit members vote on it.

This agreement gives us a financial boost and at the same time it gives both sides an opportunity to see how the variable shifts will impact us. If drivers strongly dislike the variable schedules, we have protected our rights to make changes, make objections and negotiate going forward.

Here a few highlights of the Tentative Agreement:

• A 3-year contract with across-the-board raises of 3% on July 1, 2021, 2% on July 1, 2022, and 1.75% on July 1, 2023–almost a 7% increase over 3 years.
• Protected health insurance: our new contract would guarantee that the city pays 90% of our premiums for full-time employees.
• For part-time and extra board employees, health care premiums would be prorated based on the hours worked during the previous three months. This ensures that an employee’s premium will stay consistent during the shift bid period, which could make it easier to budget.
• There is a Memorandum of Understanding on variable schedules. This will give us an opportunity to see how it works and to make objections if we decide it doesn’t work for drivers. For drivers working variable schedules, they will earn overtime after 40 hours in a week and not daily overtime. We have the right throughout the year to talk with management about how variable shifts are working, and to offer suggestions and input.
• Protection of the employee’s right to choose whether overtime is paid at time-and-a-half or as comp time.
• Updated vacation bid language to speed up the process. It would now be on a schedule similar to the shift-bidding process.
• Protected non-discrimination language.
• Protected employees’ due process rights.
• Updated our Union Security article to reflect the current law.