Green Mountain Transit has reached a tentative agreement with the bargaining unit that represents its rural drivers in central and northwest Vermont, the company said, bringing an end to a year of negotiations and all but certainly averting a planned strike.
Drivers ratified the agreement over two votes Sunday and Tuesday after the company and the union, Teamsters Local 597, came to terms March 4, according to Teamsters recording secretary Curtis Clough, who’s been involved in negotiations.
The contract still needs to be approved by Green Mountain Transit’s board of commissioners. The company said in a statement it expects that will happen at the board’s next meeting on March 15.
“I think it’s a very fair agreement,” said John Moore, the company’s general manager. “It rewards our existing employees who have been essential staff throughout the pandemic and before that, making sure people can get to where they need to go.”
Green Mountain Transit’s rural unit includes about 30 drivers covering Barre, Montpelier and Northfield, as well as St. Albans, Richford, Enosburg and Milton.
The rural drivers voted in late January to strike starting this Friday if an agreement was not reached by Thursday.
WCAX reported last month that signs had been posted at the Montpelier Transit Center notifying riders that service could stop there on Friday.
Clough said the union does not intend to strike once Green Mountain Transit’s board approves the new agreement. The contract would be in effect through June 2024.
A key issue throughout the negotiations, Clough said, was whether the company would offer its rural drivers health insurance benefits that were more in line with the benefits it offers to its urban drivers, who cover routes in Chittenden County.
Contracts for the urban drivers’ unit, as well as Green Mountain Transit’s maintenance unit, were both settled last fall.
Maintenance workers are responsible for snow removal, sanitizing company facilities and equipment, and repairing buses, among other duties.
The rural drivers’ new agreement stipulates that the company will cover the full cost of a one-person health insurance plan, as well as between 75% and 85% of the difference between a one-person plan and a multi-person or a family plan.
The union had proposed that Green Mountain Transit cover the full cost of all types of plans for rural drivers — as it already does for urban drivers.
In effect, the union was seeking to change an agreement reached in 2018 during negotiations for the rural drivers’ previous contract, in which the union gave up more comprehensive health insurance benefits in exchange for higher wages.
That contract expired in June 2021.
As part of the negotiating process for the new contract — which had included about 15 daylong sessions starting last March — an independent factfinder published a report detailing recommendations for more than a dozen unresolved issues.
The factfinder did not support the union’s proposal for coverage of all health insurance plans, stating that any decision should be left to the negotiating parties themselves.
Clough said the union was “pretty happy” with the new contract, noting it made progress in some areas that were important to the drivers.
“This is a contract that’s going to provide stability for our members and provide them the ability to afford insurance for their family, which was the primary goal,” he said.
The rural drivers’ new contract also includes increased wages and bonuses, including a salary after three months that is $26 per hour, an $8 hourly increase from the previous contract, Clough said. Drivers start out making $21.75 an hour.
Clough said Green Mountain Transit has a high turnover rate in drivers’ first years, and the union and company are hoping this could help keep employees around.
The new contract also includes provisions that the union hopes will reduce the amount of forced overtime drivers work, Clough said — another effort to limit turnover.
Moore, the general manager, said Green Mountain Transit has struggled to fill positions during the pandemic, both for driving its buses and maintaining them.
“That’s been an area that we looked at through the negotiations,” he said, “to make sure that we had a competitive wage and compensation package to not only recruit new employees, but also retain existing employees.”
