SMART Transportation Division members approve LACMTA labor pact

SMART Transportation Division members represented by General Committee of Adjustment GO 875 have approved a new labor agreement with the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA), union officials announced late last week.

The general committee represents the agency's light- and heavy-rail operators, schedule makers and checkers, and bus operators. The union represents about 5,000 LACMTA employees.

"The major issues given to the committee’s negotiators by the membership were discipline policies and work rules, an elimination of a two tier-wage scale and the security of the health and welfare trust. This contract accomplishes all of those goals," said SMART International Representative Vic Baffoni in a press release.

The agreement calls for wage increases after five, six, 10, 11 and 17 years of full-time service. An earlier two-tier wage system was eliminated and replaced by a seniority-based rate schedule. Under previous agreements, operators hired after July 1, 1997, were paid "significantly less" than operators hired on or before that date, union officials said.

During the life of the contract, all operators will receive at least one significant pay increase, with the top-rate employees receiving a 4.5 percent pay increase immediately, they said. Trainees, schedule checkers and schedule makers, and some part-time operators also will receive pay increases.