Streetcar Operators Finalize First Union Contract

A streetcar operator on The Hop. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

After successfully unionizing in 2024, streetcar workers are close to finalizing a contract.

In February 2024, more than two dozen workers who operate and maintain the City of Milwaukee’s streetcar, called The Hop, organized a union with the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 998 (ATU), which also represents Milwaukee County Transit System (MCTS) workers.

The Hop is operated by Transdev, a French multinational transportation company. The firm also operates Milwaukee County’s paratransit system, Transit Plus.

The union, which represents operators, maintenance workers, road supervisors, operator supervisors and dispatchers, started negotiating with Transdev in September, according to ATU President Bruce Freeman. Negotiators from both sides reached an agreement in late December, and union members voted to approve the contract last week.

Pending some minor adjustments to the language, the new contract will be finalized in the coming days, Freeman told Urban Milwaukee.

Freeman did not characterize the negotiations as difficult and suggested they could have had a contract sooner if not for scheduling challenges. That marks a departure from the union’s experience negotiating with MCTS, where it represents hundreds of employees.

For the past decade, those contract negotiations have been contentious. In 2015, the union went on strike during negotiations. Since 2018, ATU members have granted strike authority each time they negotiated a new contract. The union and MCTS finalized their latest three-year contract in 2024 after nine months of negotiations and a threat of a strike.

The union does already have experience dealing with Transdev through negotiations over labor contracts for paratransit drivers. The unionization campaign went relatively smoothly and didn’t face fierce pushback from the company, Freeman told Urban Milwaukee last year.

ATU initially tried to organize the streetcar workers in 2020, but internal dysfunction in the union’s leadership derailed the campaign when the international union suspended the ATU’s local autonomy.