The MARTA Board of Directors Thursday approved a new labor agreement that will give workers 3 percent raises for the next three years.
The agreement also gives a 25-cents-an-hour longevity premium to all employees with 20 or more years of service. And it gives an immediate “parity pay adjustment” of 50 cents an hour to all bus and rail operators and $1 an hour for mechanics and other skilled technicians.
The agreement provides a $1,000 retro/ratification payment for full-time employees and $500 for part-timers because the agreement was ratified before March 1. The Amalgamated Transit Union Local 732 has already approved the agreement.
Some bus drivers called in sick recently, disrupting hundreds of bus routes over more than a week – apparently to express their unhappiness with the agreement. But 88 percent of union workers approved the contract.