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Late last week, an arbitrator in a case involving the Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon (TriMet) and the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757 ruled in TriMet’s favor, which means the agency’s latest best offer went into effect on July 13.

The new contract is retroactive to when the previous contract with Local 757 expired on Nov. 30, 2009. The new pact will expire Nov. 30, 2012.

The ruling is good news for the agency’s service area, “especially our riders, as we were facing another $5 million in service cuts if we had lost the arbitration,” said TriMet General Manager Neil McFarlane in a prepared statement.

The ruling also provides “quality benefits to our union employees, while beginning to reign in unsustainable health care benefits,” he said.