In the final month of 2021, the MBTA employees represented by the Boston Carmen’s Union (Local 589) unanimously approved their new two-year contract. The new agreement went into effect retroactively on July 21, 2021, and will be active until June 30, 2023. Formed in 1912, the Carmen’s Union is the largest of the nearly 30 unions that represent MBTA workers, with 6,000 employees, about two thirds of the MBTA’s workforce, under their protection. They are a part of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), which represents over 180,000 transit workers across the United States and Canada. The covered workers include not only drivers and operators, but emergency medical personnel, municipal workers, maintenance workers, and ambulance drivers.
“Our first priority remains to provide riders with the vital public transit services they need each day to get to work, to get to schools, for medical appointments, and for other crucial daily activities. We think this deal helps support that priority in many ways,” stated Local 589 president Jim Evers. The most pressing issue addressed in the new contract is that of staffing shortages and retention. The thin staffing was brought on by a number of factors, including the pandemic, leading to excess stress felt by frontline workers as they tried to fill the gaps.
“This contract is an important start toward the MBTA recognizing our efforts and it will mean we can hire more drivers and operators to meet the needs of the public,” said Melissa Siracuse, a streetcar operator on the Green Line. As part of the new contract, incentives have been placed to transition many part-time employees into full-time via “Special Class Runs”, which would be carried out the same as any other full-time assignment, with the same benefits. Sign-on bonuses have also been put in place for new employees.
All employees will be receiving an annual 2.5% wage increase, with the first being applied retroactively on July 1, 2021, and the second on July 1, 2022. Additionally, any employees being hired during the pandemic will be receiving a one-time payment of $2,000, and all employees represented by the union will receive an extra $2,500 “diversion payment”. In return for the diversion pay, employees agreed to a temporary expansion of the MBTA’s shuttle service area.
On top of the increased wages and extra payments, the holiday and leave policies were updated for both part-time and full-time employees. Bunker Hill Day was replaced on the holiday calendar with Juneteenth, and two paid personal leave days were granted that could not be taken out of a worker’s acquired sick time. “The working condition improvements reflected in this agreement represent essential steps toward addressing the current recruitment and retention issues at the MBTA for the benefit of the rising public and for the public good,” said Evers.
“[This agreement] acknowledges the invaluable contributions of thousands of MBTA employees charged with providing safe and reliable service on a daily basis,” expressed MBTA manager Steve Poftak. The wage adjustment for union members will help connect wage growth more closely with revenue growth. The plan within the contract has set the MBTA on track to save nearly $80 million over the next four years.
“I think everyone at the table understood that the path that the T was on was unsustainable and that while the four-year savings are extraordinarily important because we have structural operating deficits, this agreement is about the long term,” stated transportation secretary Stephanie Pollack, “[it is] about reinventing the T in a way that is sustainable financially, but that is also sustainable in terms of a labor-management context that will allow management and the labor unions to work together to the same objectives.”
