T’s largest union signs new contract
Waiver removes provision hindering construction work
THE MBTA board of directors on Thursday approved a new two-year contract with its largest union that provides 2.5 percent annual wage increases and one-time allotments per employee of $2,000 in pandemic pay and $2,500 for waiver of a job protection rule negotiated by the union in 2016.
Ahmad Barnes, the T’s senior director of labor relations, said the total additional cost of the Carmen’s Union contract over the two-year period will be $27.7 million, half of which will be paid for with federal relief funds because fare revenue is down so much.
Barnes said the contract amounts to an average increase of nearly $2 an hour by the end of the contract and an average $4,148 increase in base salary.
The $2,000 payment is in recognition for work done during the pandemic. The other one-time payment of $2,500 is in return for allowing the T to use private bus drivers to handle diversion s– shuttling passengers between stops when capital work is being done on various subway and train lines. The waiver is temporary, expiring on February 28, 2024.
“These agreements from 2016 essentially strangled our ability to increase the amount of service delivery and perform a greater amount of construction work,” Barnes said.
Several sections of the union agreement are expected to help increase the number of operators, which are in short suppl y right now. Union officials said a key provision converts many part-time employees into full-time staff. Another provision allows the transit authority to pay signing bonuses to new employees, which had been prohibited previously. According to Barnes, the Carmen’s Union currently has 3,297 full-time employees.
The new contract also increases the training wage paid to MBTA recruits who are getting their commercial driver’s license, or CDL. Under the contract, someone with a good driving record and a high school diploma or its equivalent can in eight weeks become an MBTA driver earning $33,000 a year with significant benefits.The contract starts retroactively on July 1, 2021 and runs through June 30, 2023.