Union-affiliated bus drivers and train operators at the Regional Transportation District won’t be allowed to go on strike, a state official ruled this week, ordering both the agency and the union to enter into binding arbitration on contract talks.

Alexandra Hall, director of the Colorado Division of Labor Standards and Statistics, said the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1001, which represents just over 2,000 of RTD’s 2,813 employees, filed a Notice of Intent to Strike on Feb. 1. She said such an action “would interfere with the preservation of the public peace, health and safety.”

Hall noted that a walk-out would disproportionately affect “certain transit-dependent groups, including the disabled, the poor, youths, the aged, students and employees, and those dependent on transit for regular health care…”

RTD and the union local are coming to the end of a five-year collective bargaining agreement. Hall said an arbiter will be announced March 12 and arbitration would commence no later than May 14.

A similar no-strike order against RTD transit workers was handed down by the state nine years ago.