The Orange County Transportation Authority and union officials representing its bus drivers have reached a tentative agreement on a new contract, averting a strike that could have stranded thousands of riders.
OCTA spokesman Joel Zlotnik called the resolution, reached at the end of a more than 20-hour meeting that began Monday afternoon and stretched through Tuesday morning, “clearly good news.”
Mark Murphy, chairman of the OCTA board of directors, said he was “very, very happy” the groups reached a compromise, “because the buses in our system are a lifeline for literally tens of thousands of people every day.”
Teamsters Local 952, which represents about 600 OCTA coach operators, had threatened to strike as of 12:01 a.m. Tuesday morning, Feb. 15, if contract discussions remained at a standstill.
Union and OCTA officials have been trying to come to an agreement on a new contract for more than a year, but had stalled on issues of wages and break time.
When the midnight deadline for a possible strike passed with negotiators still at the table, OC Bus drivers started their shifts Tuesday, picking up residents along the 23 routes they service. Those routes represent about 75% of ridership in the county; OCTA contracts for its other routes.
The details of the tentative agreement – reached about 10:30 a.m. – aren’t being released, officials said, until the contract is ratified by union members and approved by the agency’s board of directors. The Teamsters are expected vote later this week, and the contract could go before the board during a special meeting next week, OCTA officials said.
The agreement, if approved, would take effect immediately after the board’s vote and expire in April 2024.
Reaching the tentative deal was a compromise, Murphy said, a product of “give and take” efforts that have marked the process as a whole. He called the agreement “a good one for everybody involved.”
“I think think it rewards the coach operators, but it’s still responsible to the taxpayers as well,” he said.
Eric Jimenez, secretary-treasurer for the Teamsters Local 952, agreed, saying the deal reached was “good for our members and was fair to the company.
“All the major issues and all the major concerns that our members had, we were able to address them,” he said, including breaks and personal time for drivers, raises in the first, second and third years of the contract and a signing bonus upon ratification.
OCTA officials said throughout the dozens of negotiation sessions over the past year, the agency “enhanced its offer to the union multiple times to help resolve disputes over break time and wages, among other issues.”
During the all-night meeting, Jimenez said it appeared multiple times the talks would gridlock again and the Teamsters would strike. But “major progress” was made Tuesday morning by the agency, he said, which led to the tentative agreement.
The union will likely announce the results of the members’ vote on Monday, he said.
Union members in January voted to authorize a strike, when they overwhelmingly rejected a proposed contract 420 to 75. Teamsters officials and several bus drivers who turned out to a rally on Monday in front of OCTA headquarters noted that guaranteed break time for workers to eat and use the restroom was a top-of-mind issue as they negotiated.
Some elected officials, including District Attorney Todd Spitzer and Irvine Mayor Farrah Khan, publicly threw in their support for the union’s interests at the picket held the day before the threatened strike.
And now that an agreement has been tentatively struck and a strike avoided, the OCTA no longer needs help from the governor, who the agency asked last week to step in and help prevent bus drivers from walking off the job. Zlotnik said the agency notified Newsom’s office and “the rest of Orange County’s state and federal elected officials,” about the resolution that had been reached.