Honolulu’s union bus drivers have agreed to a tentative new five-year contract with the company that operates Oahu’s bus system, transit officials said Wednesday.
The contract, between Hawaii Teamsters Local 996 and Oahu Transit Services, is expected to be ratified on Tuesday, OTS President and General Manager Roger Morton said. It would replace the previous five-year contract that expired June 30.
The new tentative deal would cover about 1,300 Teamster employees, including drivers for TheBus as well as mechanics, supervisors and other workers, Morton said.
It doesn’t include the union drivers of the city’s Handi-Van paratransit service, who fall under a separate agreement that ends in 2015, he added.
Morton and city Department of Transportation Services Director Michael Formby declined to provide details on the new contract because it hasn’t been inked yet.
Morton did say the tentative contract came after successful, late-night bargaining, which he described as "typical" of the process.
Teamsters representatives did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
Pay for TheBus’ drivers currently ranges from $20.15 to $27.43 an hour, Morton said Wednesday.
OTS, a nonprofit corporation that acts partly as a city entity and partly as an independent contractor, has made two five-year deals with the Teamsters bus drivers since 2003 — the last time the drivers went on strike, Morton said.
Before 2003, the last time Honolulu’s bus drivers went on strike was in 1971, when Teamsters struck against then-bus operator Honolulu Rapid Transit. Drivers came close to striking in subsequent years, such as in 1993 and in 2000, when a tentative settlement averted a strike the day before it was set to begin.
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Star-Advertiser reporter Gordon Y.K. Pang contributed to this report.
