SAN JOSE — Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority bus service will resume Friday, according to a press release from the agency, one day after striking union workers were ordered to return to their jobs by a county judge.
About 1,500 members of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 265 returned to work Thursday, the agency said. Light rail service could resume as early as Monday, but it is expected to take a “little longer to resume” as workers inspect the tracks and overhead lines of the 42 miles of the system.
The return to work came after two and a half weeks of a historic strike seeking a new contract with higher pay and a new arbitration clause, among other asks. The strike brought the buses and light rails across the county to a standstill, impacting the daily travel of about 100,000 riders.
On Wednesday, a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge granted an injunction that ordered the union to return to work after finding that the VTA met its initial burden of showing it would likely succeed in arguing their case. The judge did not issue a ruling on whether the strike was a breach of contract.
The agency had filed the lawsuit on the first day of the union’s strike, alleging that the workers were violating a “no strike” clause in their contract. The union maintained that the clause no longer applied because the contract had expired.
“The judge’s ruling returns affordable transportation to tens of thousands of people who rely on VTA as their main source of transportation,” the agency said in its press release. “It also allows employees to get back to work after having gone without full paychecks for more than two weeks.”
After the ruling Wednesday, Raj Singh, president of the ATU, said that the courts failed the union.
“At the end of the day, the workers lost today,” he said.
The issue of a new contract remains unresolved after the union voted down the most recent contract proposal from the agency Monday. The offer included an 11% raise over three years, but the union expressed concern that the contract did not include a guarantee that workers who went on strike would not face retaliation and added new proposals impacting overtime that had been removed from negotiations in January.
The workers initially walked off the job March 10 after negotiations fell apart the week before.
“VTA is hopeful ATU negotiators will return to the bargaining table with a proposal that will resolve the conflict and produce a fair and supportive contract,” the agency said.