Fewer than a third of fired Pittsburgh Regional Transit workers accept offer to return

Pittsburgh Regional Transit’s return-to-work offer to 84 employees fired last year because they refused to get the COVID-19 vaccine will do little to help the agency’s manpower shortage.

Figures obtained by Pittsburgh Union Progress show that only 25 of the fired workers so far have agreed to return to the agency, and only 10 of those are operators. Another 33 operators told the agency they don’t want to return after the agency and its unions reached agreements in August on the conditions for the fired employees to return to work.

Eleven other employees, including eight operators, were given extra time to respond because they had changed addresses and didn’t receive the official notice to return to work at the same time as the others.

The agency has had an increase in missed trips in the past two years due to the lack of operators and has reduced service on several routes in an effort to meet its published schedule. Advocacy groups such as Pittsburghers for Public Transit and the Allegheny County Transit Council had encouraged the agency to return the fired employees as a way to increase manpower and maintain service, but the low response indicates that action won’t have a significant effect. PRT spokesman Adam Brandolph said the agency had no expectations when it offered employees a path to return.

“I think the only expectation we had was that anyone who wanted to come back would be able to,” he said. “No, I don’t think there was any thought that this could solve the shortages. It didn’t cause them. It was not going to solve them.”

The agency signed similar return-to-work agreements with the Amalgamated Transit Union, the Port Authority Transit Police Association and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers that included a nondisclosure agreement. Pittsburgh Union Progress received the agreements from the agency under a Right to Know request.

Pittsburghers for Public Transit declined comment, and the ATU and transit council couldn’t be reached for comment.

The agency fired 84 employees beginning in March 2022 after they refused to receive the COVID-19 vaccination. After seven employees died from the virus and dozens of employees remained unvaccinated despite the agency paying bonuses for those who complied, the agency in early 2022 told employees they would be fired if they refused vaccination.

A total of 84 were fired, and many of them filed grievances challenging their dismissal.

The agreements allowed the employees, who were fired in March 2022, to return without the vaccination and drop all grievances. Their time off will be treated as an unpaid leave of absence, and they retain their seniority for picking job assignments and scheduling vacations.

They will not lose seniority or time toward their pension as result of their absence.

Additionally, all of the returning employees are eligible to receive the bonuses the union negotiated as hazard pay for working through the pandemic, even though the contracts that approved the bonuses were negotiated after those workers were fired. Employees can receive $1 an hour for each hour worked between March 2020 and June 2021 up to a maximum of $4,000, and most full-time workers have received the maximum.

About 75 of the fired employees have filed a federal lawsuit against the agency seeking reinstatement of workers to lost jobs, back pay and lawyer fees. They did not have to withdraw from the lawsuit to return to work.

Pittsburgh Regional continues to slowly rebuild its ridership, which dropped significantly during the pandemic. Combined bus and light rail ridership remains about 45% below pre-pandemic figures.

As a result of manpower shortages — which are a national problem — PRT continues to have difficulties meeting scheduled service. It has a set goal of having fewer than 2% of its trips canceled for lack of operators and has reduced scheduled service slightly in the past year, but missed trips stood at 2.5% for August, 2.06% for September and 2.1% through Oct. 10.

The agency has 17 new operators in an ongoing training class and 15 scheduled to attend a new class that begins Oct. 23.

CEO Katharine Eagan Kelleman has warned the agency could face serious service cuts in February if staffing doesn’t improve. ATU leaders have said that problem could become worse in the next few years because the union expects substantial retirements as a result of many employees hired in the early 1990s qualifying for their full pension.