This article describes a labor arrangement that affects many thousands of people in Santa Cruz County. The employer is not the University, the County Government, or even the Seaside Company, owners of the Boardwalk. Most of the people affected aren't employees, for that matter.

What follows is an analysis of a contract. It's a real contract, in effect today, right here in our county.

The rules are from the contract between Local 23 of the United Transportation Union (UTU) and the Lift Line division of Community Bridges. The contract covers paratransit van drivers. Half of their work involves transporting the 3,400 people who are currently registered for Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) paratransit. The rest of their work involves transporting clients of other programs, such as Medi-Cal (medical insurance for the very poor).

UTU, for its part, doesn't seem to want us to know what's in the contract. I mentioned, at a recent Metro board meeting, that the UTU/Lift Line contract was on the UTU Local 23 Web site. The files were gone within hours, replaced by a dummy screen saying that the information was password-protected (by permission only!). It is a dummy because, unlike the other password-protected parts of UTU's site, this one does not have a place for you to enter a password. Even before the contract was removed, UTU had deleted Appendix A, the pay scale. What could UTU be hiding from the public? Since we pay for and/or use the service, shouldn't we be allowed to see the document?