San Francisco Muni Contract Expires: Agency Officials Want To Resume Talks
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) — San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency officials said they are hoping that talks with the Transport Workers Union will resume on Monday after the current contract for Muni operators expired on Sunday night.
SFMTA spokesman Paul Rose told KCBS that they want to resume talks as soon a possible.
"We want to be able to sit down with the union and start mediation again but really if the union called and said they're ready to talk in 10 minutes, we'd be ready to talk in 10 minutes," he said.
But whether or not Transport Workers Union Local 250-A is ready to talk remains an unanswered question. Union members overwhelmingly voted down the SFMTA's last offer that includes a 11.25 wage hike for two years asks workers to contribute 7.5 percent of their pension cost—a position the transit agency is holding too.
The contract deadline is now June 30, make July 1 new "drop dead" date.
"If we don't have an agreement by July 1, we won't be able to give our operators a raise, and that's something we want to avoid," Rose said.
SFMTA officials said that while there is no sickout Monday morning, commuters should expect longer than normal wait times on some bus lines due partly to the usual number of sick calls.