Sun Tran workers walk a picket line at Ronstadt Transit Center while on strike in August 2015.Municipal bus workers in Tucson will get raises ranging from 30 cents to $5 an hour and one-time bonuses of $3,303 in the settlement that ended a six-week strike, a Teamsters Union press release said Friday.
Who gets what level of raise among the 530 workers was not specified in the press release, which said all workers will get the bonus.
The contract will cost the city $4.3 million more over two years, the release said. That compares with the $2.7 million that had been in Sun Tran's original three-year offer. The extra $1.6 million comes from payroll and fuel costs saved over the six weeks of the strike, when the bus system was operating at about one-third of its full schedule.
Included will be continued full payment by the city of workers' health insurance premiums and pensions.
The strike ended Thursday, and all 43 bus routes in the metropolitan area resumed regular schedules for the first time since Aug. 5. It was the longest bus strike in Tucson history.
During the strike, Sun Tran operated no more than 14 routes Mondays through Fridays and a handful on Saturdays. Sunday and night-time service all week long were eliminated.
Many bus riders told news media during the strike that they had lost jobs, missed opportunities to take new jobs, had trouble getting to school and doctors' appointments and were otherwise inconvenienced by the lack of bus service.
Under normal operations, Sun Tran carries 66,000 passenger trips a day. During the strike, that was reduced to an estimated 14,000 a day.
Professional Transit Management, which operates Sun Tran under contract with the city, and the Teamsters Union stopped negotiating Aug. 1 when management said the $2.7 million was its "firm and final offer."
That included raises of 50 cents an hour for entry-level workers, but no increases for others.
A problem with mold at the northwest side bus maintenance building and on some buses was at issue in the strike, and City Manager Michael Ortega was credited by the Teamsters this week with moving the talks forward by agreeing to handle the problem.
The union also said it wanted a better safety and security plan for drivers, citing 22 assaults on them in the last year. No information was available on how the new contract addresses that issue.
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