Douglas Phinney is a reporter for Community News Service, part of the University of Vermont’s Reporting & Documentary Storytelling program.
A group of Green Mountain Transit drivers who cover Chittenden County have reached a potential contract agreement with management, avoiding a possible strike.
The same can’t be said of the bus company’s two other bargaining groups: the rural drivers, and the maintenance group.
Green Mountain Transit rural drivers have voted to authorize a strike and are headed to fact finding, a step necessary before an actual work stoppage.
“Thirty days after the fact finder issues a report, if we don’t have a resolution, we’re likely to be out on strike,” says Curtis Clough, recording secretary for Teamsters Local 597, and one of the people involved in handling the contract negotiations on behalf of the bus drivers.
The rural drivers cover Barre, Montpelier and Northfield, along with St. Albans, Milton, Richford and Enosburg.
Though Green Mountain Transit hopes to avoid it, if a work stoppage occurred, management says it would aim to notify the public as quickly as possible.
“We would, you know, provide as much forewarning as possible to the public. We would certainly look at other resources we have in the organization and try to provide some level of baseline service, you know, in certain areas of the rural business,” says Jon Moore, the general manager of Green Mountain Transit for over two years, but this is his first time overseeing contract negotiations in that role.
Clough says the rural drivers are essentially looking for parity with the urban drivers, especially with family insurance plans.
“It’s mostly about the family insurance for the rural drivers,” Clough said.
After months of failed negotiations, and with the urban drivers voting to authorize a strike in July, Green Mountain Transit agreed to meet with the union two final times at the end of August. After more than 20 hours of mediation, the two sides reached an agreement.
This latest step means that the process of securing a new contract for the urban drivers is virtually finished.
“The next thing that we’re going to do is … we’re going to bring all our members in, and we’re going to have them vote the contract up or down,” said Clough before the vote, in which the agreement was approved on a 30-3 vote.
Now, Green Mountain Transit management will decide whether to ratify the agreement, and if it does, “it would be presented to the board of commissioners, likely the week of Oct. 4, for their approval,” Moore said.
If ratified, the new contract for urban drivers would extend until June 2024.
The maintenance group is also in the midst of contract negotiations that have gone to mediation.
Maintenance workers are responsible for snow removal, sanitizing Green Mountain Transit facilities and equipment, and repairing buses, among other duties.
According to Clough, many members of the group are also required to hold a commercial driver’s license. The group recently voted to authorize a strike, but still has two mediation sessions scheduled for Oct. 12 and 13.
“We have additional mediation sessions scheduled [with the maintenance group], actually with the same mediator that we used for the urban bargaining unit, so we’re hopeful that we’ll end up with a similar result, with a tentative agreement,” Moore said.
