Metro legal fees hit $1.3m in union fight

The legal bills are piling up for Metro in the transit agency's fight with its largest union over wage increases.

Metro has spent $300,000 so far appealing an arbitrator's decision -- made more than a year ago -- that granted the wage increases, said Metro spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein. That comes on top of $1 million already spent on the arbitration fight itself.

The fight has cost Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 less than $300,000, estimated President Jackie Jeter.

Now Metro and ATU Local 689 are waiting for a federal court decision to resolve the impasse, which dates to May 2008, on whether Metro must pay 3 percent raises to bus and train operators over three years.

The lack of resolution has frustrated those on both sides, including Metro Board members.

"Make a decision," Metro board member Christopher Zimmerman said. "Win or lose, we'd all be better off."

Differences over Metro contract disputes must be resolved through binding arbitration, each choosing one mediator, who then pick a third neutral arbitrator. In this case, the arbitrators ordered the transit agency to pay the wage increases in November 2009, but Metro appealed the decision to court because it said the arbitrators did not consider the agency's financial situation or the economic climate. The court kicked the case back to the neutral arbitrator, who clarified his reasoning, and now it rests with the U.S. District Court in Maryland for a judge to resolve.

Jeter said she sees no reason why the union won't prevail, arguing that the union won the process the two sides had agreed to years earlier. She said Metro contested it "like a whiny baby."

The transit agency has been waging an all-out fight, hiring the big-name firm Venable LLP in its battle. The firm did not return a call for comment.

But the transit agency has argued that fighting the case is worth the $1.3 million in legal fees because the wage increase itself represents more money.

kweir@washingtonexaminer.com