SAN JOSE — A Santa Clara County judge ordered striking Valley Transportation Authority employees to return to work at a hearing Wednesday, bringing the strike to an end in its third week but leaving the issue of a new contract without an immediate resolution.
Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Daniel T. Nishigaya ordered the striking union to return to work, issuing an injunction on the grounds that the VTA met its initial burden to show it had probable success in its arguments but did not rule on resolving the claims in the case.
“I know both sides have a strong desire to serve the public, and I thank both sides for that desire,” he said.
Raj Singh, the president of the ATU, said after the hearing that he did not know when the workers would be expected to return to work. VTA spokesperson Stacey Hendler Ross said Wednesday afternoon that the injunction took effect immediately, but she did not know when buses and trains would start serving the public.
“We believe that the justice systems and the court has failed us,” Singh said. “At the end of the day, the workers lost today.”
Ross, from the transit agency, said: “VTA will be figuring out over the next few hours exactly when service will get back on the streets. There are tens of thousands of people who have suffered because of this strike, and we are appreciative of this ruling so that our employees can get back to work.”
Ross added that she hopes the union will return to the negotiation table to come to an agreement on a new contract.
Amalgamated Transit Union Local 265 workers walked off the job March 10 after negotiations with the VTA for a new contract fell apart over the inability of the two sides to compromise on arbitration language and the amount of a pay raise, leaving the riders who use the buses and trains each day without their normal transportation routes.
The VTA filed a lawsuit against the union on the first day of the strike, seeking an injunction to stop the strike on the grounds that the union violated a “no strike” clause in its contract. The union has maintained that the previous agreement expired and the clause no longer applies.
Nishigaya initially denied the VTA’s request for a temporary restraining order last week but granted its request for an order to show cause, summoning union representatives to appear in court to argue why the injunction should not be granted.
At the court hearing Wednesday, attorneys representing the union and transit agency sparred over whether the union breached the “no strike” clause in the contract, whether the court has jurisdiction over a transit labor dispute and whether the strike has caused irreparable harm.
Benjamin Lunch, an attorney for the union, argued that the contract had expired — which he said the VTA has acknowledged to both employees and the public — and that provisions such as the “no strike” clause do not roll over even though some provisions such as employee wages and working conditions do based on precedents of labor law. He added that the contract’s extension into an extra year only applies if neither side wants to renegotiate the contract.
“Otherwise, this would create an indefinite contract,” he said, which would be terminable at will by either party.
Jenica Maldonado, an attorney for the VTA, maintained that the union would have had to issue written intent to terminate the contract in order for it to no longer apply.
She also argued that the union’s argument ignored that the VTA is suing for breach of contract and not a labor dispute, adding that the VTA believes that the court and the governor have concurrent jurisdiction over granting an injunction for a transit strike. She noted that the VTA already sought intervention from the governor and that waiting for him to intervene when he has already declined would give the VTA “no remedy.”
Lunch maintained that the court does not have jurisdiction to grant an injunction for a transit strike on the grounds that the governor has sole authority in the state to grant an injunction or cooling off period. He also maintained that the strike has not caused irreparable harm, a characterization that Maldonado called “quite preposterous,” citing the negative effect the strike has had on riders left stranded.
The agency and union returned to mediation Tuesday, one day after the union overwhelmingly voted down a new proposal from the VTA that offered an 11% raise over three years but removed the memorandum of understanding that guarantees workers who strike will not face retaliation and added revisions to the attendance and overtime policies.
Singh, the president of ATU, earlier this week attributed the contract’s failure to pass to the addition of these stipulations, which he said had been originally removed from conversations in January.