Even if RTA and the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1385 come to an agreement and thwart a strike set for Monday, negotiations on a contract for 2018 and beyond would likely begin this September, union officials said.
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State Rep. Niraj Antani, R-Miamisburg, said he is looking into several legislative options to prevent future strike threats, including a proposal to force transit workers to enter binding arbitration.
“Certainly, this is not working,” Antani said. “I will look into a legislative solution to make sure this situation never happens again. It’s absolutely unacceptable for a strike to happen — or the threat of a strike to happen.”
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Ohio House Minority Leader Fred Strahorn, D-Dayton, said the potential transit strike is “not a strong enough impetus” to deny the right to strike.
“I’m not typically in support of restricting people’s right to collectively bargain or strike,” Strahorn told the Dayton Daily News. “Just because there’s a bump in the road here doesn’t mean we should go off half-cocked and cut that avenue off for people.”
Antani said the proposal for automatic binding arbitration came from Butler Twp. Trustee Nick Brusky. The Republican trustee told the Dayton Daily News he would like to see legislation requiring public transit unions to operate under the same rules as police and fire unions.
Strahorn said he believes transit is important, but “just doesn’t rise to the same level as fire and police.”
“Again, police and fire is a different situation, potentially a life-and-death situation.”
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The union has offered binding arbitration as a solution to the current negotiations, but RTA officials have rejected the proposal as exposing taxpayers to financial risk by forcing RTA to accept the decisions of a third party.
“Had we went to binding arbitration this contract would have been settle(d) and the public would have never been in the middle,” wrote Local 1385 President Glenn Salyer in a letter last month to RTA. “I would be willing to have language in all new contract(s) for binding arbitration, so the public can never be put in the middle of a strike.”
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RTA CEO Mark Donaghy rejected Salyer’s proposal, stating RTA would not “delegate our responsibility to the local taxpayers to a third party to determine the future cost of operating this agency.” Additionally, he noted during a recent RTA board meeting the right to strike was restored in exchange for giving up binding arbitration.
“To get the right to strike back, unions in Ohio gave up binding arbitration,” Donaghy said. “It was written into many contracts — might have been in the contract here, I don’t know — and (unions) traded it for an alternate dispute resolution process, which is fact finding.”
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The union and RTA attempted fact finding, but were unsuccessful in reaching an agreement.
Antani additionally praised U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown for weighing in on the negotiations Saturday. The Republican state representative said he asked the Democratic U.S. senator to intervene in the matter and “quite frankly was impressed” with Brown’s response.
“I commend him for not taking sides,” Antani said. “He’s a labor guy, if he took the side of labor, people would understand. But he’s above reproach.”
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Brown urged the two sides to come to an agreement.
“We owe it to riders, taxpayers and the entire Miami Valley to do everything possible to avoid a strike,” Brown said in a statement. “I hope all sides will come to the bargaining table ready to reach a fair agreement to keep workers on the job and local transit moving for the Miami Valley.”
Officials with the offices of U.S. Sen. Rob Portman and Gov. John Kasich, both Ohio Republicans, did not immediately comment on the negotiations.
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