The Chicago Transit Authority has rejected a last-minute overture from its unions estimated to save $80 million — enough to fill the lion’s share of the transit agency’s budget hole and stave off service cuts, the bus operators’ union said yesterday.
“We came prepared to do some things to save our members’ jobs, and hopefully save the Authority some money,” said Amalgamated Transit Union 241 President Darrell Jefferson. “Unfortunately, we’re probably further apart today."
The union offered to stagger its pay raise for next year until mid-2012 and to give members more unpaid “random days off,” which Jefferson argued are equivalent to the furlough days the CTA is asking for.
Jefferson said he wouldn’t agree to take this year’s already-enacted 3.5 percent pay increase off the table — something CTA leadership has repeatedly requested — because most of that raise isn’t making it to members’ pockets, instead mostly going towards increased pension payments and higher taxes.
The CTA wanted the union to take a 5 percent wage decrease and forego raises the next two years, Jefferson said.
They also took issue with the union’s proposal for random days off, Jefferson said, wanting instead to make those days off mandatory.
“There are people out there who would take those days off,” Jefferson said, estimating the days off would save $25-$50 million. “As long as it gets you to the dollar amount that you’re seeking, who cares if it’s mandatory, what name it is, if it dances. Who cares? It gets you where you want to go.”
CTA spokeswoman Noelle Gaffney said the union's press release is not accurate. She declined to elaborate, citing a non-disclosure agreement signed during arbitration with the union on the order in which employees can be laid off.
“CTA entered into those negotiations in good faith, and obeyed the arbitrator's specific direction to both parties to refrain from any public discussion about the negotiations or any proposals.” Gaffney wrote in an e-mailed statement. “Now that the ATU has chosen to repudiate the arbitrator's direction ... CTA has no choice but to state unequivocally that there is absolutely no truth to the union’s claims.”
Windy Citizen 