CTA Bus Drivers Mulling Strike

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Nov 3, 2009 3:20PM

With 2,000 layoffs being included in the CTA's dreaded 2010 budget, leaders for the CTA bus drivers' union are contemplating a strike to fight the proposed cutbacks. Local 241 of the Amalgamated Transit Union is threatening to not only strike to protest the cutbacks and promised raises made in a 2007 deal, but is claiming that the CTA's current budget gap is closer to $500 million, far larger than the CTA claims. Darrell Jefferson, President ATU Local 241, told CBS 2, "Metropolitan Transit Act says, in section 28, that management and exempt people should make up only 3 percent of the total number of employees. We estimate CTA being somewhere like 15 to 18 percent. Laying off people and you're still gonna be heavy in management, I think you're asking for a war more than a layoff."