PVTA workers end strike, reach tentative agreement

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WGGB/WSHM) — A strike by unionized PVTA bus drivers over a contract dispute with the transit authority’s management group has been called off, thanks to a new tentative agreement that has both sides ready to put the situation beyond their control.

“Yesterday afternoon I got a phone call, late afternoon, that there might be something coming. So we waited and waited, offers came in around 7:30 p.m., and then it got more serious as time went on and we finally came to a tentative agreement,” Jim Harrington, a member of ATU Local 448, told us.

This is an agreement that has been in the works for months, with negotiations beginning last March.

The management company on the other side of that deal, DGR Management, the overseers of PVTA’s fixed-route service in the greater Springfield area, had its best and final offer rejected by the drivers’ union ATU Local 448 last Tuesday, setting the stage for Saturday’s vote.

In just a few hours, things changed radically.

“It’s a fair contract, that’s what we asked for from the beginning,” Harrington said. “We got about 14%, 14.5% over the three years. So we’re okay with that. It wasn’t exactly what we wanted, and it wasn’t exactly what they wanted to give us. So we’re in the middle.”

DGR management is pleased that the end of this conflict with the drivers may be on the way to being over.

“With the last-minute tentative agreement in place, I want to thank the management team and the union for their efforts to ensure we were fully prepared to provide service this morning without disruption to service,” they said in a statement sent to our newsroom.

These drivers were about to go onto the picket line.

“We had everything ready: signs, T-shirts, everything,” Harrington said. “They didn’t want to strike, and we didn’t want to strike. We don’t want to hurt the public, the buses that have been running every day for years, the school kids and our families. So we’re happy.”