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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A lawyer for transit workers is asking a judge to force the Utah Transit Authority into arbitration over a contract imposed by management last December.
UTA declared an impasse in negotiations with the Amalgamated Transit Workers Union and enacted a new contract offering no pay raise for a year and a half.
Attorney Joe Hatch on Friday asked 3rd District Judge L.A. Dever to send the case to an arbitrator, claiming UTA violated federal labor requirements by bargaining in bad faith.
A federal labor agreement with UTA requires good-faith bargaining and arbitration of disputes whenever federal dollars are involved, Hatch said.
"What they are doing is putting in jeopardy the hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars that the UTA gets for transit," he said.
UTA attorney Scott Hagen argues that it's up to the judge, not an arbitrator, to decide the case. He said the labor agreement doesn't mandate arbitration for all issues in contract disputes.
At issue is whether UTA had the right to unilaterally declare an impasse and impose its terms as the old two-year contract expired last winter.
If an arbitrator ruled that it didn't because it had not bargained in good faith, then UTA would have to revert to terms of the old contract and resume talks with the union.
The new contract delayed a 1 percent raise for bus and train workers until at least July 1, 2011, depending on a rebound in sales-tax revenues by then.
The union also is contesting shorter turnaround or break times between bus runs and the use of part-time TRAX and FrontRunner train operators who don't get benefits.
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Information from: The Salt Lake Tribune
(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
