The new 3-year contract between Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1764 and First Transit, the private contractor that operates the popular D.C. Circulator buses, gives the drivers eventual pay parity with their Metrobus colleagues and the right to refuse to drive unsafe vehicles.
The wage hike came after ATU publicized the high turnover among Circulator drivers, due to poverty-level wages in the high-cost D.C. area - and after the D.C. auditor reported that up to 95 percent of tested Circulator buses had safety problems. The drivers staged several rallies over the issues of low pay and unsafe buses.
"Poverty wages were leading to high employee turnover, and high turnover was transforming the Circulator from a premium bus service into a District-subsidized training ground for other local transit systems that better provide the economic security transit workers," Brogan explained. "Like all of us, they need to live in this expensive region."
"We need to improve the employee retention," District Department of Transportation Director Leif Dormsjo told the city council earlier this year. "We want to have good, loyal operators who are happy and safe doing what they are doing because that just means our customers are going to get a higher quality of service." Read More>>
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