NORTH ANDOVER — Bus drivers have gone on strike twice in the Merrimack Valley Regional Transit Authority’s 50 years.
Scheduling appears to have had a role in roiling negotiations in the earlier strike, in 1983; scheduling was at the center of the 2026 impasse.
The recent stoppage, with picketing at MeVa (a pronounceable acronym) over the first 10 days in July, was the drivers’ response to management’s final contract offer.
Management’s three-year contract proposed that drivers forfeit their longstanding open work schedule on Saturdays — thereby making the day part of their work week — in exchange for a 25% wage increase over the three years.
The strike ended with a stopgap one-year agreement that kept Saturday scheduling as is and gave the 114 drivers, six mechanics and four wash rack and two maintenance workers an 11.8% wage increase.
The temporary agreement solved the immediate crisis, but postponed how to balance driver scheduling, wages and service demands without another strike when the contract expires next summer.
The one-year agreement put the fare-free buses back on the road July 12, restoring a lifeline for many of the tens of thousands of riders who were left without public transportation for a week and a half in July.
The challenge now becomes how to avoid a replay of the stoppage when the one-year agreement expires on June 30.
To that end, the transit authority and its operating company, DGR Management, on one side of the table, and the Teamsters Local 170 union on the other side have committed to entering collective bargaining months earlier than the typical January start of negotiations.
Also, the two sides plan to enter less formal discussions to inform collective bargaining.
A more relaxed setting
MeVa administrator Noah Berger said state Rep. Andy Vargas, D-Haverhill, had suggested establishing a more relaxed setting than the formal collective bargaining arena for exploring solutions to challenges including scheduling and wages.
“Can we put together an innovation committee that looks at all these things in a non-pressured way?” Berger said Vargas had asked him.
Berger said in an interview this week that the committee, to include management and drivers and Vargas, would identify points of reference and best practices that serve drivers and riders in MeVa’s 16 towns and cities — from Methuen and Lawrence to Newburyport and Salisbury.
It remains to be determined when and where the meetings will be held, and how they will be structured, Berger said.
He said he didn’t expect they would be open to the public.
Local 170 union steward Michael Durso, a Merrimack transit bus driver for 27 years, said Vargas had been in touch with him, asking him to recruit drivers to sit on the new committee.
Durso said he would assemble drivers with a cross-section of experience for the committee: himself, a senior driver, a junior driver and a driver somewhere in the mid-range.
No change in key issue
The key to securing an agreement remains unchanged.
Management had proposed inserting Saturdays into the regular work week to increase service on that day and meet funding and scheduling needs.
Union drivers want Saturdays to remain as they have for decades, open to bid work that gives more senior drivers first dibs, a framework that provides for both financial and family, work-life balance needs.
The strike started on July 1 after union members voted overwhelmingly, 102-16, to reject the MeVa management team’s proposed three-year contract, Durso said.
MeVa carries more than 3 million passengers a year, the fixed routes funded by state, federal, and local funding as well as revenue MeVa generates from its fees at the McGovern center parking garage.
MeVa is one of 15 regional transit authorities in Massachusetts.
Riders don’t place blame
The RTAs were established by the legislature to meet public transportation needs outside Greater Boston.
The Merrimack Valley Regional Transit Authority was founded in 1974 and began operations in 1976.
Fare-free buses are funded largely by Massachusetts’s Fair Share dollars, a 4% surtax assessed on incomes of more than $1 million.
MeVa routes and schedules are expected to remain as they have been for the remainder of the contract, Berger said.
Riders interviewed at bus stops at the North Andover Mall and McGovern Transportation Center in Lawrence described, in short order, the hardships they faced during the strike, but did not blame either side.
As a whole, the collection of families, students and, mostly, workers appeared to have resigned themselves to their transportation difficulties during the strike, recognizing the hardship as another hurdle in their lives.
Expressions of gratitude
Several people expressed appreciation for the service drivers regularly provide them.
At the North Andover Mall, Eric Gallagher and his children, Cori, 23, and Bella, 16, were waiting for a bus home to South Lawrence after shopping at Market Basket.
How did the strike affect them?
“It was hard because we couldn’t really get the food that we needed,” Bella said.
“My nana had to walk when it was really hot out and she’s in her 60s.”
Norman Howarth, standing nearby, said he uses MeVa everyday for food shopping and all his needs as well as for volunteering at Cor Unum Meal Center on Salem Street in Lawrence.
Sitting nearby, on break from his job in the dairy department at Market Basket, was Omar Rodriguez.
He and other employees ride the MeVa bus to work.
During the strike he took a cab home from work.
He said he was super glad the buses were back running.
Not just because he saves money, but because he gets to see regular customers.
During the strike he didn’t see some of the older shoppers who rely on walkers or otherwise have difficulty getting around.
Feelng the impact
Over at McGovern Transportation Center a number of the people waiting at bus platforms wore work uniforms for McDonald’s or Stop & Shop or Market Basket.
Gladys Torres, a 25-year Market Basket employee, had to miss two days of work during the strike because she didn’t have money for a cab or Uber.
Pedro Pena, a Lawrence High School student and a Market Basket employee, had to pay almost two hours of his wages for cab fare to and from work.
He said he didn’t know the reason for the strike, but he figured there must have been a meaningful reason for it.
He said the drivers treat him and other riders well.
A man at the abutting MBTA train platform, Brian Terry, who uses MeVa regularly, said he has ridden public transportation in Boston and New York and other places.
He ranks MeVa drivers at the top of his list with one exception.
That would be Ralph Kramden, the bus driver played by the legendary actor Jackie Gleason in the 1950s sitcom, “The Honeymooners.”