RTD Clerks OK 3-Year Pay Pact

The RTD’s data processors, telephone operators and clerks will receive a 42-cent-per-hour pay hike over three years, along with normal cost-of-living increases, under a new pact approved near midnight Thursday.

The 11th-hour approval--which also provided workers with a one-time $500 bonus--assured that Los Angeles’ bus system would continue to operate. Although the drivers’ and mechanics’ unions had come to terms with RTD management Wednesday, those unions probably would have honored a walkout by the 735-member clerical bargaining unit, the Transportation Communication International Union.

There are about 100 job classifications represented by the union. The average pay for those workers is now $12.49 per hour.

RTD management, under the new contract, won controls from all three bargaining units designed to cut down on worker absenteeism pay, considered a major drain on the transit system’s finances, and to curtail overtime pay.