Pret­ty impres­sive. But for the dri­vers behind the wheel of this top-of-the-line fleet, not all is well: Grand Rapids bus dri­vers are with­out a signed union con­tract, because city offi­cials want to cut their pen­sion funds. One Rapid board mem­ber has called the cur­rent pen­sion sys­tem a ​“ter­ri­ble plan” and claims the board wants to ​“do bet­ter” for dri­vers, the board claims the pen­sion fund is $2.6 mil­lion in the red. The dri­vers disagree.

In 2013, Grand Rapids was named the city with the best mid-size trans­porta­tion sys­tem in the coun­try, accord­ing to the Amer­i­can Pub­lic Trans­porta­tion Asso­ci­a­tion. Last year, The Rapid, as the city’s bus sys­tem is known, fin­ished an upgrad­ed bus garage facil­i­ty that also gar­nered LEED cer­ti­fi­ca­tion status.

In recent years, Grand Rapids, Michi­gan has gained a rep­u­ta­tion as a leader in envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty, with numer­ous LEED-cer­ti­fied build­ings, an increased num­ber of bicy­cle paths and an improved pub­lic bus sys­tem with new routes and more fre­quent stops after vot­ers approved a recent tran­sit millage.

Over the past few months the Amal­ga­mat­ed Tran­sit Union of Grand Rapids (ATU­GR Local 836) has been con­fronting the local tran­sit author­i­ty (The Rapid), its board mem­bers and elect­ed offi­cials from Grand Rapids and sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties, many of which con­tribute tax­es to the bus system.

Last week, I spoke with some of the rank-and-file bus dri­vers for The Rapid as they pre­pared for anoth­er action in defense of their pen­sions. Peter Rick­et­son, a mem­ber of ATU­GR Local 836, told me, ​“The Rapid wants to get rid of the Defined Ben­e­fit Plan because they believe it is in per­il. We don’t think that is the case. Even if it was in per­il, they should allow us to chip in 20 cents an hour in addi­tion to the $1.00 an hour [The Rapid] already chips in from our wages. They will not agree to this or any oth­er amount.”

The ATU­GR has pro­posed to put an addi­tion­al amount into the Defined Ben­e­fit Plan, because they believe this plan is stronger than the Defined Con­tri­bu­tion Plan, which doesn’t have a strong track record nation­al­ly and is less sta­ble. Despite the dri­vers’ offer to pay for the plan, they say The Rapid is refus­ing to allow them to do so.

“They are say­ing they want us to accept a Defined Con­tri­bu­tion Plan or noth­ing. It’s like hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with my three-year-old,” Rick­et­son adds. ​“This is not a nego­ti­a­tion, it is a strong-arm tac­tic. In fact, we would sim­ply call it union busting.”

I fol­lowed the dri­vers to East Grand Rapids, one of the wealth­i­est parts of the city, where they planned to pass out fly­ers in Amna Seibold’s neigh­bor­hood. Sei­bold is both the may­or of East Grand Rapids and a mem­ber of the Rapid’s board. She has been a vocal oppo­nent of the ATUGR’s pen­sion plan.

The dri­vers went to Seibold’s house first to share a fly­er and engage the Rapid board mem­ber. She answered the door but was not inter­est­ed in hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with the bus dri­vers; instead, Sei­bold act­ed in what the dri­vers say was a very con­de­scend­ing man­ner, then accused them of being unwill­ing to nego­ti­ate their con­tract. After leav­ing Seibold’s house, the dri­vers passed out the fly­er in her neighborhood.

The dri­vers’ lit­er­a­ture accused Rapid man­age­ment of three things:

They raised bus fares by 16 %, mak­ing it as expen­sive to ride a bus here as it is in L.A.

%, mak­ing it as expen­sive to ride a bus here as it is in L.A. They are cut­ting retire­ment secu­ri­ty for bus work­ers, includ­ing those near retirement.

They then turned around and raised The Rapid CEO’s salary to $ 203 , 000 !

Sei­bold has char­ac­ter­ized pen­sions as an ​“anti­quat­ed sys­tem” of retire­ment secu­ri­ty in the past.

Call­ing pen­sions ​“anti­quat­ed” is harsh, but it fits with­in the larg­er project of impos­ing aus­ter­i­ty mea­sures in Michi­gan. In 2013, Michi­gan became a ​“right-to-work” state, when Gov. Rick Sny­der rammed through leg­is­la­tion just before the hol­i­day recess at the end of 2012.

In 2011, when Sny­der began his first round of aus­ter­i­ty mea­sures in Michi­gan, he vis­it­ed Grand Rapids to announce the plan, since the city was already a mod­el for imple­ment­ing such anti-work­er/an­ti-pub­lic poli­cies. Grand Rapids had for years been down­siz­ing pub­lic staff, cut­ting work­er ben­e­fits and pen­sions and pri­va­tiz­ing pub­lic ser­vices. Sny­der made con­di­tions for ​“rev­enue shar­ing” (when the state gives back tax mon­ey to indi­vid­ual com­mu­ni­ties), which called for cities through­out Michi­gan to insti­tute sim­i­lar aus­ter­i­ty policies.

This is the con­text in which The Rapid’s man­age­ment decid­ed not to nego­ti­ate with ATU­GR Local 836. Todd Bro­gan, Field Mobi­liza­tion Spe­cial­ist with the nation­al Amal­ga­mat­ed Tran­sit Union, char­ac­ter­ized The Rapid’s actions as not only a form of union bust­ing, but a kind of dis­as­ter capitalism.

“They cre­at­ed a cri­sis that didn’t exist, with the hope that you can sway pub­lic opin­ion to sup­port the fur­ther ero­sion of the pub­lic sec­tor,” he says.

So far, that strat­e­gy hasn’t work. The ATU­GR has not only mobi­lized its mem­bers to attend Rapid board meet­ings, but has also orga­nized bus rid­ers, oth­er unions in West Michi­gan and oth­er sup­port­ers who are angry that their bus fare has increased while the CEO of The Rapid, Peter Var­ga, has received a raise of $4,000 and the bus dri­vers are being attacked. Activists from Grand Val­ley State University’s Unit­ed Stu­dents Against Sweat­shops (USAS) chap­ter recent­ly orga­nized a flash­mob in sup­port of the ATU­GR and marched with bus dri­vers dur­ing the annu­al art spec­ta­cle known as ArtPrize.

In recent months, ATU­GR mem­bers and their allies have filled pub­lic meet­ings demand­ing the tran­sit author­i­ty return to the nego­ti­at­ing table in good faith. Bus dri­vers on their own time began hand­ing out infor­ma­tion­al fly­ers at the city’s cen­tral bus sta­tion to inform the pub­lic about their con­tract nego­ti­a­tions — only to have The Rapid threat­en to have work­ers fired for pass­ing out leaflets. The ATU­GR took Rapid man­age­ment to court, where a judge decid­ed in their favor, say­ing that they were being denied their first amend­ment rights.

The cam­paign in Grand Rapids to defend work­ers rights and pro­tect pen­sions has even gar­nered the sup­port of Demo­c­ra­t­ic Pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Bernie Sanders who released a state­ment in sup­port of the campaign.

Grand Rapids has an aston­ish­ing high pover­ty rate of 26%, far high­er than the nation­al aver­age, which makes main­tain­ing these mid­dle class jobs and ben­e­fits more impor­tant than ever. When you raise the fares by 16% in the same meet­ing that you give the CEO a $4,000 a year raise, there’s a prob­lem. You are tak­ing from the work­ing peo­ple of Grand Rapids to give more to the wealthy. This is mak­ing inequal­i­ty in Grand Rapids worse.

As of this writ­ing, the dri­vers’ orga­niz­ing appeared to be pay­ing off: The Rapid has agreed to come back to the bar­gain­ing table. Dri­vers I spoke to were opti­mistic but cau­tious. Many say they care not only about their jobs, but about the strength of the pub­lic tran­sit sys­tem in West Michi­gan. Many of the rank-and-file work­ers say they helped to get the word out about the 2014 tran­sit mill­age and feel a sense of pride in mak­ing a suc­cess­ful case to vot­ers to sup­port an increase pub­lic mon­ey for the greater Grand Rapids bus system.

ATU­GR Pres­i­dent RiChard Jack­son said this cam­paign has gal­va­nized the bus dri­vers union and cre­at­ed greater sol­i­dar­i­ty with oth­er unions and com­mu­ni­ty groups from West Michi­gan. ​“We are not just in this bat­tle to fight, but to win,” Jack­son says. ​“My union and my work­ers tru­ly believe that.”