LOWER LAKE — Cars, trucks and buses honked as they drove by bouncing yellow picket signs Monday in Lower Lake.
About 30 people were on strike and will continue today, in Lower Lake, Lakeport and Clearlake protesting lack of raises for Paratransit employees, Business Representative of Teamsters Local Union No. 665 Mike Yates said.
The Teamsters are currently in negotiations with Paratransit Services, the company contracted by Lake Transit to handle transit services in the area, and will meet with them on July 17 in hopes of signing a contract and preventing further strikes, Yates said.
Workers want a 2.9 percent cost of living increase as well as the reinstatement of a 10-step pay increase they forfeited three years ago that would grant them yearly raises for 10 years, Teamster president Ralph A. Miranda said.
The idea behind the forfeited raises was to help Paratransit avoid staff cuts and other financial hardship in a time when the economy was not doing well, but now that it”s improving employees want those raises, Miranda said.
“They (Paratransit) get compensated very well by the Lake Transit authorities, but they”re not willing to offer that to the employees,” Miranda said. “They can afford it. They just want to keep it all.”
Paratransit offered a cost of living increase it calculated at 2.2 percent in May, following a 2.6 percent increase from last year, but the Teamsters did not accept it, according to Paratransit official Randy Grove.
“Paratransit Services” proposal of a 2.2 percent wage rate increase is incredibly fair in the light of layoffs, furloughs and business closures experienced by others in the region,” Grove stated.
Despite not having reached a deal yet, Miranda said he had confidence in the union negotiators.
“I”m optimistic that a deal will be struck in the near future,” Miranda said. “I don”t know if it”ll happen on the 17th, but soon.”
Isaac Brambila is a staff reporter for Lake County Publishing. He can be reached at ibrambila@record-bee.com.
