PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — Bus drivers and employees with the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority on Wednesday held a protest, arguing that the authority did not give its workers proper pay raises during last year's bargaining negotiations.
According to PSTA, the three-year bargaining agreement that was signed in September 2021 gave drivers and maintenance workers a more than 3 percent raise.
April Murphy, a union representative for PSTA workers, says employees went into negotiations hoping to receive a 5 percent raise. However, they were told it was not in the department's budget.
Months after agreeing to the new deal, Murphy says workers want to reopen negotiations after she says workers learned executives in PSTA had received raises. According to Murphy, she believes the money being used for those raises is coming from federal COVID relief funds.
"It's a PSTA wage scam and it needs to be cracked," Murphy said.
However, PSTA says those accusations are "untrue" and "unfounded." According to the authority, the funds it received went into its operational budget which covers wages for all workers.
"Nearly 100 percent of COVID funds paid all our wages, and 70 percent-plus of PSTA wages are union wages," PSTA said in a statement.
