In MLB All-Star week, Metro workers empower leaders to strike |
Posted: July 19, 2018 |
Thousands of workers from Metro’s largest union voted Sunday to authorize a potential transit strike, a risky move that would be the culmination of an extended labor dispute and could grind the region’s transportation network to a halt.To get more Metro news, you can visit shine news official website. Jackie L. Jeter, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689, said the members approved a potential strike by a 94?percent margin. She declined to give an exact turnout, saying thousands had voted. Union leaders would not say whether they will launch a strike now that they have been authorized to do so. “We will decide the when and where and how,” Jeter said at a news conference Sunday night. “We have to call a meeting of the executive board after this vote, and then we’ll decide on what we’re going to do.” Jeter said that executive board meeting could take place as soon as Monday.Because Metro workers are forbidden from striking under the system’s governing compact, a judge or arbitrator could order an end to any strike and penalize those who do not comply.Even a brief work stoppage would have the potential to significantly disrupt the transit system, which transports about 1 million people a day and is expecting an additional influx of riders Monday and Tuesday nights in connection with Major League Baseball All-Star Game festivities. The union’s last authorization vote, in 1978, led to a one-week strike. “We understand the ramifications of what we’re asking our members, we understand what a strike would mean,” said Jeter, whose labor group includes about 8,000 of Metro’s 12,500 active workers. Carroll Thomas, the union’s first vice president, laid out the implications plainly: “If we don’t move, this region doesn’t move.The vote follows “late-out” demonstrations on July 4 and Thursday, in which some employees arrived after the start of their scheduled shifts, noticeably delaying some bus service. Labor leaders say those actions were intended to send a message to Metro management about stalled contract negotiations, job cuts, privatization, duty reassignments and other issues. Local 689 has been without a contract since July 2016,with binding arbitration ordered last fall. The union and Metro management have sparred over a three-day advance notice policy for sick leave and whether workers should be able to work a seventh consecutive day in exchange for double pay.
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