Bus service has been suspended in Milwaukee County for up to the next three days, after the local drivers union announced a work stoppage Tuesday night.
The system said it will suspend bus service starting at 3 a.m. Wednesday. The announcement comes after negotiators for the Amalgamated Transit Union and Milwaukee County Transit System met with a federal mediator for hours Tuesday, but failed to agree on a new contract for the bus driver. MCTS said it made “significant concessions” to the union Tuesday, but union vice president Rick Bassler disputes that.
Union president James Macon said he wanted to take the dispute to an arbitrator, but the county has refused.
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“We actually wanted to go to arbitration on all this crap that they said they was trying to give us,” he said. “If there was a problem, why didn’t they take it to arbitration?”
Macon said the bus drivers work stoppage will only last three days because the union doesn’t want to inconvenience riders. However, the transit system says up 150,000 riders a day will be punished.
The walkout marks the first MCTS bus driver strike since the late 1970s.
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