Last month, the labor contract between the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada and the Service Employees International Union looked like a done deal.
But at Thursday’s commission meeting, RTC administrators were sent back to the negotiating table after commissioners took a closer look at potential scenarios brought upon by a faltering economy.
“Everything you heard when everyone was talking in such positive terms (last month) is true today,” said RTC Commission Chairman Larry Brown after the board voted unanimously to send negotiators back to the table.
Board members went into an hourlong closed session prior to continuing a public hearing on the five-year deal that included merit pay increases tied to sales tax collections.
Brown explained after the vote that board members got cold feet on the deal when they started plugging numbers into contract formulas and began wondering whether the RTC could uphold its end if the economy sours in the next five years. Board members — who are representative of Clark County government and Southern Nevada municipalities — also worried about what the contract would mean for other public employee contracts because unions often compare proposals to existing local contracts when they go to the negotiating table.
Thursday’s session was a stark contrast from a month ago when commissioners, union representatives and RTC administrators were giving high-fives for “thinking outside of the box” on the new contract.
At the time, Brown said the contract “set a new bar” for labor relations in Southern Nevada; Assistant General Manager Jerry Keating, who led the RTC’s negotiating team, called it “fiscally responsible and fiscally viable,” and Al Martinez, president of SEIU Nevada Local 1107, said “both sides won.”
But in the end, Brown said the board was nervous about committing to paying raises when there could be needs for adding new routes, buying new bus equipment or paying for maintenance on vehicles or equipment.
“It was a question of whether, under today’s economic conditions, this is something we should be committing to,” Brown said.
He said the economy has been improving and sales tax receipts have been ticking up, but there are hints that some dips could be on the horizon.
Negotiators could possibly look to decreasing the length of the contract term to protect the agency from unforeseen downturns.
The RTC has no set timetable for revisiting the contract, but Brown said he is hopeful that negotiators could meet before the RTC’s next scheduled meeting, Sept. 13.