Spring Break
No deal reached in PARTA strike
Stacey Carmany
Issue date: 10/6/08 Section: News
Negotiators for the Ohio Association of Pulic School Employees Local 037 and the Portage Area Regional Transit Authority were unable to reach an agreement during negotiations Friday.
PARTA and the union exchanged proposals in Independence, upon the request of a federal mediator, in an attempt to get the striking drivers back to work. The drivers have been on strike since Aug. 25.
The parties have been at odds over fair share, a contractual provision that would require non-union drivers to pay fees to the union.
Negotiators for OAPSE Local 037 have refused to accept any proposed contract that doesn't include fair share or modified fair share.
PARTA has continued to oppose the provision.
According to Trina Molnar, field representative for OAPSE Local 037, PARTA presented the union with a one-time signing bonus "upon member ratification by a specific date." The bonus was $575 for each full-time driver and $275 for each part-time driver.
The union offered PARTA three fair share language options, Molnar said. Option one was full fair share. Option two was a modified form of fair share in which employees would be "grandfathered in." All current drivers not wishing to join the union would not be subject to fair share for their uninterruped service at PARTA. Drivers hired after the ratification of the contract would be required to pay.
Under the third option, non-union drivers would pay fair share only when union membership reaches 70 percent of the bargaining unit employees.
"Basically, we gave PARTA multiple options to choose from in order to come to an agreement and put their employees back to work and off the strike line," Molnar said.
"PARTA declined and would not accept once again any proposal regarding the fair share issue, keeping the employees out on the strike line for the 39th consecutive day over an item that does not cost PARTA, not the taxpayer, a single dime."
Contact transportation reporter Stacey Carmany at scarmany@kent.edu.
PARTA and the union exchanged proposals in Independence, upon the request of a federal mediator, in an attempt to get the striking drivers back to work. The drivers have been on strike since Aug. 25.
The parties have been at odds over fair share, a contractual provision that would require non-union drivers to pay fees to the union.
Negotiators for OAPSE Local 037 have refused to accept any proposed contract that doesn't include fair share or modified fair share.
PARTA has continued to oppose the provision.
According to Trina Molnar, field representative for OAPSE Local 037, PARTA presented the union with a one-time signing bonus "upon member ratification by a specific date." The bonus was $575 for each full-time driver and $275 for each part-time driver.
The union offered PARTA three fair share language options, Molnar said. Option one was full fair share. Option two was a modified form of fair share in which employees would be "grandfathered in." All current drivers not wishing to join the union would not be subject to fair share for their uninterruped service at PARTA. Drivers hired after the ratification of the contract would be required to pay.
Under the third option, non-union drivers would pay fair share only when union membership reaches 70 percent of the bargaining unit employees.
"Basically, we gave PARTA multiple options to choose from in order to come to an agreement and put their employees back to work and off the strike line," Molnar said.
"PARTA declined and would not accept once again any proposal regarding the fair share issue, keeping the employees out on the strike line for the 39th consecutive day over an item that does not cost PARTA, not the taxpayer, a single dime."
Contact transportation reporter Stacey Carmany at scarmany@kent.edu.
Viewing Comments 1 - 10 of 48
G Smith
posted 10/19/08 @ 3:05 PM EST
I don't understand how the OAPSE union can keep the drivers out on strike for over a month now when the objectional issue is about fair share money that goes directly to the union. (Continued…)
Robin Anderson
posted 10/19/08 @ 6:35 PM EST
'Union Man' or union-administrative-policy-wonk or some knee-pad-wearing administrative lackey? You wanna keep callin names or try to solve the problem, buttercup?
'G Smith's' question is every bit as valid as the following question: 'Why should PARTA management object to an article in the Agreement that would not cost them a dime'? I'd call the PARTA management's stance union-busting myself. (Continued…)
Robin Anderson
posted 10/25/08 @ 8:55 AM EST
Perhaps I was a little too rude and crude in my rebuttal to some annonymous 'union man' comment about scabs, eh? Oh well, such is life; a taste of their own medicine, so to speek. (Continued…)
Robin Anderson
posted 10/25/08 @ 10:28 AM EST
Hm...if PARTA employees are governed by Ohio's State Employees Relations Board(SERB) as opposed to the National Labor Relations Board(NLRB) and...if PARTA employees' retirement is under Ohio's Public Employees Retirement System(PERS) would it be safe to 'assume' that they are public employees?
Hm. (Continued…)
Robin Anderson
posted 10/25/08 @ 6:20 PM EST
fyi to any interested party:
Posted 10/22/08
The deadline to apply is 4:00 PM Tuesday, October 28, 2008:
Posting due to employee exercising their bumping rights. (Continued…)
NObama
posted 10/26/08 @ 9:25 PM EST
I read that Trina the union wench is comfortable on the picket line with her space heater and shack to climb into as the climate grows colder. I wonder if the union bosses ever expected this to go on for two months now. (Continued…)
Robin Anderson
posted 10/28/08 @ 12:14 PM EST
Yeah, you read where, buttercup? I'd wager that the same 'articles' you've supposedly read about the 'union's fair share demands' also included some information about the PARTA management's union-busting tactics, eh?
fyi. (Continued…)
NoBama
posted 10/28/08 @ 4:53 PM EST
Wingnut, eh! Union busting tactics? What are those, wingnut, eh? Paying the drivers a bonus to come back to work? Or taking 2% that goes to directly to this do-nothing, know-nothing excuse for a union. (Continued…)
Nelson Angstrom
posted 10/28/08 @ 6:03 PM EST
For R. Anderson:
Insubordination and failure of good behavior. Gotta love that your alleged malfeasance, or misfeasance or afeasance (however they termed it. (Continued…)
Robin Anderson
posted 10/29/08 @ 8:50 AM EST
Hi Nelse!
Naw, the 'feasances' are separate offenses from the tried & true military concept of 'insubordination: failure of good behavior'...in the Ohio Revised Code, anyways. (Continued…)
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