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Fifty Yale Shuttle drivers have given notice that they may strike next week if they don’t reach a new contract.
The employer, shuttle service company First Transit, which has a New Haven division on Dixwell Avenue, contracts with Yale University to operate the fleet of 60 bulldog-studded shuttles. The shuttles provide five daytime routes, two nighttime routes, a VA Service Shuttle, a Yale-New Haven Hospital Shuttle, a shuttle to the university’s West Campus, and an after-hours “special services” shuttle for students, staff and faculty requesting pickups late at night or outside of the route. First Transit, in turn, hires 80 drivers represented by Teamsters union Local 443. The university has contracted with First Transit for around five years after ending a previous contract with New Haven Bus Company.
Yale’s contract with First Transit runs through November 2020, according to Yale spokesman Tom Conroy.
Details about the negotiations have been hard to come by. Teamsters local President and Business Agent Thomas Bayusik confirmed that the union is in negotiations with First Transit. He declined comment on details. “As a policy we don’t say anything to the media. I am negotiating with my steward and First Transit and that’s all I can say at this time,” he said.
“We value our employees and everything they do every day, and we respect their right to collective bargaining,” said First Transit spokesperson Jay Brock. ‘Due to our partnership [with Yale], we don’t discuss our relationship with the media.”
Drivers are asking for a raise. They currently begin at $13.49 per hour. They are also seeking better health benefits and more paid holidays holidays, according to a shuttle driver who spoke on condition of anonymity and who said that about half of the drivers work full-time (40 or more hours per week) and half part time.
Beginning 10 months ago, the driver said, the union entered negotiations with First Transit seeking higher salaries. Then eight months ago, First Transit approached the union with an offer — 2.5 percent raises. That would mean a starting salary of around $13.83 per hour. At a union meeting “several months ago,” said the driver, attendees (not all 80 drivers were in attendance) agreed that they could not take that deal, and the union entered a second round of negotiations with First Transit. Negotiations seemed slow, the driver said — they and others were not entirely sure that Teamsters had their best interests in mind, or could negotiate for them successfully. Then at a meeting in early February, around 50 of 80 signed a petition to strike “near the end of the month.”
That is the point at which drivers and the union currently find themselves.
Because Yale shuttle drivers are required to have a Class B driving license, the driver argued, more expertise is expected of them than the university’s own service and maintenance staff, represented by a Yale union.
“We work hard, and this is what we get,” the driver said. “I believe what we ask for is fair. At the job we do, we have to look out for the safety, the security of the Yale students. We’re part of that. It’s like nobody recognizes our job.”