MINNEAPOLIS—There won’t be a bus strike during the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.
Members of the Metro Transit bus and train drivers’ union have voted to accept a two-year contract offer.
Michelle Sommers, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1005, says the vote was 83 percent favoring the contract and 17 percent opposing.
The contract will give drivers a 2.25 percent increase, to $23.72 per hour, on September 1. It calls for another 2 percent hike one year later.
The contract talks had threatened to disrupt the Republican convention, which runs September 1-4, if workers had gone on strike.
In 2004, Metro Transit bus drivers and other workers were on strike for six weeks.
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Information from: St. Paul Pioneer Press,
