MASCOT, union appear to have deal

WASILLA — At least to hear the board of directors tell it, the Valley’s public transportation company has almost pulled itself out of a financial ditch.

Matanuska-Susitna Community Transit has had a rough winter. In September, the company announced it was facing a massive budget deficit. MASCOT laid off nine of its employees and slashed its routes. In November, Executive Director Louis H. Friend III resigned, saying the organization needed someone with a different skill set to navigate the troubled financial waters.

Somewhere along the line, MASCOT and the Teamsters Local 959, which represented some of the laid off workers, wound up in front of the National Labor Relations Board. The union asked that those laid off workers be paid what they would have made had they not been shown the door.

At Wednesday’s meeting of MASCOT’s board of directors, Treasurer Archie Giddings said it appeared as though MASCOT had reached an agreement with the Teamsters. But he couldn’t be sure.

The NLRB hadn’t given him notice that the case had been closed. Giddings expressed frustration with what he saw as a lack of communication coming from the NLRB.

He said the terms of the deal give the laid off workers 50 percent of what they’d asked for. The bus company is on the hook for $3,000 per month for as long as it takes to pay off that debt.

Both Giddings and board President Charles Parker said in no uncertain terms that the Teamsters complaint represented a mortal threat to MASCOT.

“Anything else that we would have settled for would’ve put the organization at risk,” Giddings said.

Parker agreed, saying that the Teamsters seemed to recognize that it either had to concede some ground or put MASCOT under.

“For the union it was either lose or lose,” he said.

He also made clear that, though the union had alleged lawlessness, MASCOT has not admitted to breaking any law. Nor, he believes, should it have to.

“We have not been found guilty of any crimes, nor have we committed any,” he said.

As all this was going on, MASCOT also hired back three union drivers let go during the staffing cuts, said LaMarr Anderson, who stepped up to fill Friend’s position after Friend resigned,

Anderson said there have been rough patches since the laid off drivers were brought back, but the bus company is working through them.

“We are continuing to build teamwork,” he said. “I’m happy with the way people are cooperating and working together.”

And on the financial front, Giddings said he thinks MASCOT should expect to see clear sailing through to at least the end of the fiscal year in July.

“We’ve turned a corner on the cash flow,” he said. “I’m really hands on right now.”

Giddings thinks the finances are approaching a point where he wouldn’t mind stepping back. He said he would like the board to look at the possibility of hiring an accounting firm to run the financial side. The board might consider giving the firm some oversight power to bring expenditures it finds questionable before the board.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.