MTA Bus Pact May Alter Seniority Rights Of Drivers At Depots

JOE SEXTON: Sees threat to seniority.

Since the recently arbitrated Transport Workers Union Local 100 contract for Metropolitan Transportation Authority Bus workers allows management to assign Bus Operators to work out of any of the system's five depots, drivers now face complications regarding one of the most sacred of union-protected rights: seniority.

Ends Depot-Return Rule

The contract, which was imposed by a tripartite arbitration panel in June, allows MTA Bus managers to order Bus Operators to drop their bus at the nearest depot rather than their home base. The award also allows supervisors to relieve Bus Operators while they are on their route rather than when they return to the depot.

Joe Sexton, the Queens chair of the Local 100 Private Lines Division, said that before this wage pact was imposed, drivers "picked" into jobs based on a depot seniority list, usually with about 500 other workers, but do not know how the system will work if they are assigned to depots other than their own.

"You're now picking with 1,400 people," he said. "They changed the landscape drastically here."

Mr. Sexton noted that in 2003 workers in the union's Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority Division faced a similar dilemma and devised a plan to address seniority that was voted on by the division's membership. He added that Local 100 Acting President Curtis Tate assured him that for the MTA Bus pick Aug. 10, the day this newspaper went to press, workers would pick based on a depot list and that a new seniority system would not go into effect until January.

"We don't want to rush into this," Mr. Sexton said. "We want time to discuss this and possibly vote on it."