Interim Jaunt CEO acknowledges unionization efforts, plans salary increase this year

While staff at various local governments continue to put together potential by-laws for a regional transit authority, labor relations is another moving part in the complicated negotiations. 

At least 39 Charlottesville Area Transit employees are now members of the Amalgamated Transit Union, a move allowed by legislation in 2020 that allowed public employees in Virginia to engage in collective bargaining. 

On February 20, 2024, one of their representatives asked Council to consider ending a contract with Jaunt to provide services required by the Americans with Disabilities Act.  (read the story)

Mike Murphy is the interim CEO of the public service organization following the resignation last year of Ted Rieck. In an executive committee meeting held on March 5, Murphy told some of the Board of Directors that the ATU contacted some Jaunt employees, and in response, Jaunt management set up an employee relations committee.

“A lot of that discussion focuses on pay as a result of what operators’ impressions are of the signed union agreement in the city,” Murphy said. 

Murphy said he did not want to make any comment until the agreement is public. He did say Charlottesville Area Transit’s base pay is already about eleven percent higher than Jaunt’s base pay. He said he would be recommending a salary adjustment for operators before the end of the fiscal year above and beyond the increase he’s recommending for FY2025. 

Murphy had more details in a February 28, 2024 letter sent to Council in which he explained that Jaunt’s status as a public service organization means that enabling authority for collective bargaining doesn’t apply. He added that he contacted Delegate Katrina Callsen about carrying a bill to change that, but HB780 ended up being incorporated into other legislation that did not make it out of the House Appropriations Committee this year (HB1001).

At the executive committee meeting, Murphy played the audio of the comments made by John Ertl of the Amalgamated Transit Union. He said Ertl misrepresented Jaunt’s position on collective bargaining. 

“We have had legal consult on that from our in-house attorney, a third-party attorney, and believe that the state code does not enable us to have that discussion,” Murphy said. 

Murphy said Jaunt would follow the collective bargaining process if it were authorized, but said the complicated nature of Jaunt’s organizational structure raises many questions. 

The full Jaunt Board of Directors met yesterday and one of the items on the agenda was an update on the Regional Transit Authority. There are a lot of moving pieces when we talk about how to move people around the community and part of my work is to capture as much as I can. Sometimes it takes a while. (Jaunt Board agenda for March 13, 2024)

Before you go: The time to write and research of this article is covered by paid subscribers to Charlottesville Community Engagement. In fact, this particular installment comes from the March 14, 2024 edition of the newsletter and podcast. The audio version of this segment is also in the radio edition that aired on WTJU on March 16, 2024 and archived on the Charlottesville Podcasting Network.

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