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Dec 2, 2008 7:21 pm US/Eastern
Details From Port Authority Deal Come Out
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ―
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While nobody wants to talk publicly, KDKA-TV has learned that the contract is a four-year deal through June 30, 2012.
KDKA
Port Authority bus drivers and T-operators will meet on Sunday to vote on a contract deal hashed out by their union leadership and Port Authority officials in Washington.
And it's a deal that has both pluses and minuses for everyone.
While nobody wants to talk publicly, KDKA-TV has learned that the contract is a four-year deal through June 30, 2012.
Wages will go up 3 percent in 2009, 2 percent in 2010, and back up 3 percent in 2011 and 2012. Workers, who now make only a 1 percent contribution for their health insurance, will contribute 2 percent of wages in 2009 and 2010 and then 3 percent in 2011 and 2012.
The plan is better for bus drivers than one the Port Authority board wanted to impose -- and it does provide annual wage increases at a time when thousands in other industries are losing their jobs or seeing wage freezes.
The union also won a delay in scaling back current retirement health benefits, something strongly desired by management.
Health insurance benefits will be maintained for current retirees and any transit union member who retires before June 30, 2012. After that, retirement health benefits will start to be reduced for future retirees, as the Port Authority wanted.
If approved by union members and the Port Authority board thereafter, county executive Dan Onorato is expected to release $27 million from the controversial drink tax -- guaranteeing transit service at least for the foreseeable future.
Union members will gather at Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall this Sunday at both 10:30 a.m. and at 8 p.m. to cast a ballot.
Neither union president Pat McMahon or Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato would comment today on the details of the proposed agreement.
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