Wednesday will be a special payday for thousands of Metro workers. Most of the transit agency’s employees will be seeing a 3 percent boost in their paychecks as the first step in the resolution to an epic wage fight with the transit agency. Then next month, they will get even bigger checks as they are slated to receive lump sum payments for retroactive raises from the past two years. The transit agency expects to pay out about $104 million in total.
Metro’s board of directors decided last month to give up its three-year fight with its largest union after losing a court appeal of a 2009 arbitration decision. It agreed to pay up after spending $1.5 million in legal fees fighting the increases.
The decision translates to 3 percent raises for some 8,000 workers for 2009, 3 percent on top of that for 2010, then another 3 percent on top of that for this year. The first portion of the raise will be paid out on Wednesday to cover the pay cycle starting Aug. 28, but the agency is still calculating exactly what each employee will get for the past wages, Metro spokesman Dan Stessel said.
A typical ATU worker who made about $62,000 two years ago, though, could expect to receive an extra $5,700 before taxes, which includes the retroactive lump sum payment and the additional 3 percent of their salary for the rest of this year.
The payouts do not mean additional fare increases or subsidies to riders and taxpayers, though. Metro said it had set aside $96 million to pay for the wages. Metro expects to have to pay an additional $8 million in pension benefits, as well.
Metro Board Chairwoman Catherine Hudgins had said the board agreed to follow the U.S. District Court decision with dismay, especially in an economic climate when many others are seeing flat wages or even facing furloughs that reduce their pay. The raises also cover a time when Metro enacted the largest fare increase in its history and increased its taxpayer subsidies.
Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 officials did not return calls for comment about the payouts.
Initially the union had sought 6 percent raises per year. The union workers lost out in other ways during the fight, ending up with higher health care costs and reduced benefits.
Now both sides are girding for more fights ahead. The union contract expires next year and Hudgins has already warned that the workers shouldn’t expect more raises.
