MORE: With strike looming, RTA union changes leadership
The meeting comes after turbulence in both the regional transit authority and ATU Local 1385. After publicly floating the possibility of a strike in December, union members elected a new president to represent them at the negotiating table. Meanwhile, RTA this month announced riders will face higher fares and fewer routes as the agency faces a loss of $4.6 million in sales tax revenue.
To better understand the problems in the RTA-ATU relationship and gain insight on how leaders might improve talks, the Dayton Daily News used Ohio’s public records laws to obtain dozens of emails sent late last year between the two parties. The newspaper provided copies of three of those lengthy email exchanges to negotiation and conflict resolution experts at several of the nation’s leading business schools for third-party analysis.
"I think it's a good example of how emotions can trickle in and can affect the direction and tone of the negotiations," said Benjamin Dunford, an associate professor at Purdue University Krannert School of Management. "Those things can be very destructive and counterproductive in negotiations."
Emotions are not bad, but a multitude of negative emotions and adversarial feelings can prevent negotiating parties from problem solving, said Daniel Shapiro, a Harvard University expert in conflict resolution.
“They’re choosing to play the role of adversary, and each is reacting to the other’s invitation to be more adversarial,” he said. “If you want to work in a productive way that ultimately saves taxpayer money, that’s not the way to play.”
Exchanged between RTA chief executive Mark Donaghy and the union’s then-president Glenn Salyer, the emails span several days last year before the union’s members elected Gerald Duncan as their new president.
Shapiro said an ideal situation would be if RTA and ATU representation “could get colleagues together and start brainstorming creative ways of working out an agreement better than a strike or a public confrontation.” He also suggested Duncan and Donaghy meet together for coffee without talking business.
“Practically, it sounds like this a moment of opportunity with shifting leadership,” he said.
Roy Lewicki, a professor emeritus at the Ohio State University Fisher College of Business, said the email exchanges appear to have reached "a level of being personal, meaning it's not just talking about union demands or the company's position, but making comments about particular members."
In the emails, Salyer used an expletive in responding to one of Donaghy’s answers. Donaghy, a public employee, told Salyer he was “just plain full of crap” and “apparently can’t read.”
“Generally, when conflict has gone in that direction, people get angry, they get very defensive and they communicate in dysfunctional ways. I’d say this is an example,” Lewicki said. “Certainly, from the union point of view, Donaghy’s behavior is just fire for them to bolster their own solidarity.”
Donaghy declined to be interviewed for this story and said he believed the newspaper was making an “effort to magnify the perceived drama between” him and Salyer.
“My focus is on the here and now as well as the future of this organization,” Donaghy said by email.
ATU Local 1385 represents more than 400 RTA drivers and mechanics. Duncan, the new president, did not respond to several requests for comment. Reached by phone, Salyer said he wished his successor well.
“I did what I thought was in the best interest, and everything I did was board approved,” Salyer said. “I wish them the best of luck, and I hope they can resolve the issues in the best interest of the members.”
MORE: RTA chief, union leader agree: They don’t like each other
ATU filed an intent to strike with the State Employment Relations Board in late December. The strike date was set for Jan. 1, though union officials said the contract signed with RTA in January 2017 required them to file the paperwork in order to maintain their ability to strike. Union officials then backed off the strike threat.
The contract approved in 2017 addressed the years 2015, 2016 and 2017. The benefits plan approved during the 2017 strike asked employees to pay 15 percent of the total cost of the health care plan defined by premium charges for years 2015 and 2016.
For 2017, the contract called for the employees to pay for a weekly rate based on the type of the medical coverage selected. A single employee paid $27.53 weekly for medical, prescription and dental coverage, or $88.21 per week for a family. Upon ratification of the agreement, RTA contributed to a Health Savings Account one-time lump sums ranging from $1,100 for a single employee up to $2,500 for family plan coverage.
The agreement additionally called for the development of a non-obligatory wellness incentive plan, with employees able to earn up to $600 in wellness benefits as cash or as a pretax contribution to a health savings plan or reimbursement account.
In October, RTA proposed each full-time employee pay 20 percent of the total cost of the health care plan. A memo released under Ohio’s public records laws confirms the offer was still on the table as of Dec. 6. Donaghy this month declined to tell the newspaper whether the offer was still active.
Under the October proposal, employees actively enrolled in RTA’s wellness incentive plan and meet its requirements would pay 10 percent of the total cost of the health care plan if fully insured, or the premium equivalent rate defined each year by RTA if self-funded for a single, one plus one, or family contract.
“We have encouraged non-union employees who have taken advantage of this opportunity to direct those savings, pre-tax into their Health Savings Accounts and would highly recommend that represented employees do the same if adopted,” Donaghy wrote ATU leadership in the Dec. 6 memo.
By email, Salyer told Donaghy in December: “We hope we can renew our heath benefits as provided last year, as you know this was the reason for the strike and will be the reason now.”
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