Bus drivers get pay raise they didn't want

The Flathead County commissioners implemented a pay raise for the Eagle Transit bus drivers Thursday, even though union members had rejected the offer as insufficient.

The Eagle Transit drivers are one of five groups of county employees whose union contracts expired June 30.

New contracts have been negotiated with three of those groups - the Sheriff's Office, and Solid Waste and Road Department operators. County Administrator Mike Pence said a contract also should be completed shortly with the Road Department Teamsters.

However, the county and Eagle Transit drivers have apparently reached an impasse.

Pence said the group has twice rejected the county's "last, best and final" contract offer. The two sides also went through mediation in August, but failed to resolve their differences.

Negotiations on a new contract started last spring. Agency on Aging Director Jim Atkinson said money has been the main sticking point.

Pence said the county is open to further discussions with the union. In the interim, it decided to implement the pay rates contained in its last "final" offer.

"We felt there needed to be a pay adjustment, and we made it," he said.

Thursday's action raised the starting pay for drivers from $9.62 an hour to $10.44, retroactive to Sept. 18. The rate increases to $10.72 next year and $11.01 in the third year.

Hourly pay for drivers who have been with Eagle Transit for at least two years will go from $11.27 to $11.97, or from $12.06 to $12.79, depending on the driver's classification.

Those rates increase next year to $12.40 and $13.23, respectively, and to $12.83 and $13.69 in the third year.

The increase for experienced drivers includes an annual cost-of-living adjustment - estimated to be 2.7 percent - plus 10 cents an hour in the first and third years and 40 cents an hour in the second year.

By comparison, the sheriff's union and Road Department operators received a cost-of-living adjustment; the landfill operators received cost-of-living plus holiday pay and a pension fund contribution of 10 cents an hour.