Rochester City Lines drivers unionize

http://news.postbulletin.com/newsmanager/templates/localnews_story.asp?z=7&a=310351

10/4/2007 10:24:29 AM

By Bob Freund

Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN

Bus drivers for Rochester City Lines, which operates the city's transit system, overwhelmingly have voted to join a national union of transportation workers.

City Lines workers voted 35 to 9 to affiliate with the Minneapolis-based Local 1005 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, National Labor Relations Board Regional Director Robert Chester said this morning.

The union now will represent bus drivers and dispatchers for the city's transit system. However, the vote does not affect more than 50 other employees for the company's commuter system to area towns outside Rochester; it also does not affect the affiliated charter division.

The ballots from a Sept. 18 election had been held uncounted until Wednesday because of a formal challenge seeking to add the commuter bus drivers to the ATU's bargaining group. However, the NLRB in Washington, D.C., rejected the appeal late last month and the ballots were opened Wednesday at NLRB's regional office in Minneapolis.

Forty-nine workers actually voted, but five votes were challenged at the counting. "We would not look into them because they are not sufficient in number to affect the results of the election," Chester said.

FULL story at link.