Wyn Delano
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON — (WMAL) ATU Local 689 – Metro’s worker’s union – held a strike authorization vote among its members on Sunday, which passed with 94% of the vote. It is the first such strike authorization in 40 years. The last strike was a week long in 1978 which ended up being litigated in court system.
David Stephen told WMAL that the union plans to give notice to Metro today to convene a meeting of their executive board to discuss the strike vote – and likely will decide on whether proceed with one. According to Stephen, there is a five day notice requirement to convene the board, which means that a potential strike would likely spare MLB All-Star events this week.
President of the ATU Local 689 Jackie Jeter and first Vice President Carroll Thomas have both expressed dismay at WMATA and specifically with Paul Wiedefeld, Metro’s general manager. They stressed that they don’t want to impact the public with a potential strike, but that chaos may not be avoidable as they try and fight alleged wrongdoing by WMATA.
“The members have said that they are tired,” Jeter said in a press conference. “They are fed up with the disrespect that this general manager and his executive leadership team has for our collective bargaining agreement and the workers here at WMATA.”
Much of the disagreement comes from changes to WMATA’s policies on sick leave, criminal background checks, outsourcing some janitorial staff to a private company, as well as a threat from Wiedefeld to punish union workers who showed up late to work on July 4th and 12th as a form of protest.
While ATU Local 689 is legally prohibited from striking according to their collective bargaining agreement, the union has claimed that they believe Wiedefeld has also violated the contract so its a non-issue.
The WMATA Board of Directors, in a statement, said that it important to keep the customers in mind and that Metro has made a commitment to “increase capital investment in Metro with the understand that a similar commitment be made by Metro to tackle tough issues, including solving growing costs.”
“The General Manager and his team are working to make these difficult decisions while also protecting current employees. We must find solutions together by continuing to talk and listen, as Chairman Evans recently did in a meeting with union leadership. The collective bargaining process is the appropriate and legal path to finding solutions,” WMATA Board of Directors also stated.
According to Stephen, the union has accepted a meeting with Paul Wiedefeld’s designees on Tuesday to discuss the issues. He said in an email to WMAL, “It is not our intention to disrupt the MLB All-Star game, and we would hope that WMATA shares our desire to talk in good faith and will not use this meeting as a stop gap to get through the big day.”
The potential shutdown has even drawn the ire of Virginia State House Republican leaders who released a joint statement saying “we will not write a blank check to a dysfunctional organization.” No Democrats are listed in the statement which calls on Governor Northam to take legal action to prevent a strike.
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