The battle centers on a mediated agreement that includes a pension payment "swap": Workers would pick up a pension contribution equivalent to 7.5 percent of the salary that's now paid by the city. In exchange, they'd get a 5.05 percent salary increase to cover the new payment. The agreement also includes a 3 percent pay increase in the contract's first year and a cost-of-living increase in the second year that would range from 2.25 to 3.25 percent.
Transport Workers Union Local 250-A President Eric Williams says local officials initially agreed to the pension swap when it was mediated in early May. But in a letter over the weekend to San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency Director Ed Reiskin, Williams said a certified public accountant's later analysis of the swap showed it would result in a "net wage cut" for bus and train operators.
Williams says the CPA's analysis led Local 250-A officials to back away from recommending the contract to members, who then rejected the agreement on May 30 with 96 percent voting "no." The vote was a prelude to a three-day sickout that paralyzed most Muni service. The two sides have made no apparent progress in resolving the dispute the job action ended nearly two weeks ago.
SFMTA officials have said their hands are tied by City Charter language that bars further negotiations once an agreement has been mediated and voted on. At that point, they say, the City Charter requires the agency to proceed to impasse arbitration.
But Williams' letter to Reiskin argues that since the SFMTA made "misrepresentations" about the pension swap and thus failed to live up to a City Charter requirement for good-faith bargaining. Because of that, Williams wrote, the two sides should get back to bargaining.
"The agency wants to get to mediation-slash-arbitration," Williams said Monday. "We aren't there yet. We feel we should be sitting back down at the table, letting them clarify the issues surrounding the pensions."
Muni officials say the bus and rail operators are the only city employees not making pension contributions and insist that needs to change.
Williams said the union is open to a pension agreement, but it needs to be "an even swap."
"The members of Local 250-A have not received a wage increase for over four years," Williams said. "We don't have a problem with paying our own pension. But just like they did every other union — police, fire and everybody else — they gave them an even swap."
Agency spokesman Paul Rose says the mediated agreement is open for discussion, and possible changes, through June 30. That's the final day in the city's current fiscal year and the last day the Board of Supervisors and mayor can agree to spending for the fiscal year beginning July 1.
"At this point," Rose said, "we're doing everything we can to make sure that we can avoid another sickout and make sure that our operators have good and fair wage increases."
Williams said union leadership had no part in organizing the earlier sickout and said operators staged the action out of frustration with their treatment by the city. As to the prospect of another sickout, Williams said, "We would just have to see. I will be surprised just like everyone else."
