Longtime DART employees are frustrated with decisions by the agency’s leadership they say are impacting benefits and morale among workers.
Last week, members of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1338, which represents DART workers, met with DART leadership as part of a process called meet and confer to discuss policy changes. The union can’t legally strike, so it’s the only avenue the union has to negotiate with the agency.
“I was hoping it would have been better than what we had already in place, as far as our policies, that we will retain those, and that we could discuss issues that were relevant to what we need to negotiate going forward in the future,” said Donnie Jolly, president of the local union. “That didn't happen.”
One of the biggest concerns is the agency doing away with what drivers call the AM/PM board, a scheduling system that bus drivers say allows for a flexible lifestyle balance.
With the board, on-call drivers could rotate their schedules depending on availability. It was implemented after a driver named Zulita Walker died in a crash off the I-45 and I-30 interchange in 2016. Jolly, who knew Walker personally, said she fell asleep at the wheel due to fatigue.
“As a result of that young lady's death, we created the AM/PM extra board, we created a 13-day rule, meaning that you can only work 13 days out of 14, you would have to take a mandatory one day off of work,” Jolly said in an interview with KERA.
Jolly said DART wants to return to a standard board system to address ongoing attendance issues, meaning employees won’t have the option to rotate their schedules. The union pushed back, saying the change doesn’t address the root cause of attendance.
“The changes that [DART's] imposing, it's not going to make a difference as far as attendance,” said Kenneth Day, who represents the union at the national level. “Based on what [DART's] doing, employees actually are being rebellious. A lot of them are not coming to work because the morale is down.”
Jolly said he was shocked to learn that about a third of DART employees say they plan on leaving the agency, according to a recent survey.
“The numbers [are] astounding to me,” said Jolly. “514 people right now are thinking about leaving DART.”
Day added that Senior Executive Vice President Bernard Jackson has been retaliating against unionized employees by preventing workers from getting paid for union-related activities at the request of the union president.
“Anybody who's off on union business, the company pays them and then the funds are deducted back out of the union’s dues that DART collects for us,” Day said. “Mr. Jackson don't like that… we feel it’s a retaliation for them and is a form of union busting.”
DART denies the allegation and said Jackson does not approve daily requests of union business. The agency added that there have been an "astronomical" number of hours approved for union business and employees who have an issue with the approval process can file a grievance.
Jeamy Molina, a spokesperson for DART, said in a written statement that the agency’s leadership has been meeting with the union since last August.
“DART works closely with ATU Local 1338 through the meet and confer process,” read the statement. “Over the past 7 months, staff have met multiple times in good faith to hear their concerns and work through the process.”
Earlier this year, Molina said, DART adopted some of the ATU's recommendations. She added that the agency is in the final stage of the meet and confer process, which involves DART providing a written response on the consideration of other proposals.
Some of the proposals the union had put forth also included a holiday markup, which gave senior employees the benefit of choosing to work holidays or not. In a written response, DART VP Jackson agreed to keep that policy in place.
But union leaders maintain that the agency isn’t meeting in good faith and is, in fact, trying to take away long-standing policies that have worked for veteran employees.
With a styrofoam cup in his hand, ATU Local 1338 executive vice president Bernard Wade demonstrated the ongoing talks with DART.
“That's my drink. If you come over and take my drink from me, now I gotta negotiate with you to get my drink back,” Wade said. “Have I gained anything?”
“We are negotiating for benefits that [ATU leadership] has fought for for over 40 years,” Wade said.
Pablo Arauz Peña is KERA’s growth and infrastructure reporter. Got a tip? Email Pablo at parauzpena@kera.org.
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