If you saw any WRTA buses Thursday you might have noticed that all the drivers were wearing red masks. Well, it wasn't a coincidence.
They were doing it to express their concerns over COVID-19.

The union that represents the 78 bus drivers who work for the WRTA say they are concerned about the safety of those drivers and they believe they deserve hazard pay for working in what they call potentially dangerous conditions.

"We have older drivers here and they are at much higher risk for the virus than we are but they come to work every day!" said Amalgamated Transit Union Local 272 president, Tenessa Wills. 

Union leaders say drivers are concerned that people on the buses are not practicing social distancing and that the buses themselves are not being cleaned and sanitized enough. Right now they are being cleaned once at the end of the service day. The union also wants drivers to get hazard pay. They believe since the WRTA received 10.3 million dollars from the federal CARES act, drivers should be well compensated with that.

The executive director of the WRTA, Dean Harris, says the board voted Thursday afternoon to give them a week's worth of hazard pay.  Union leaders say it's not enough.

"We just want our fair share. We don't think they are being fair with us. We've worked 680 hours so far and one week does not compensate us for 680 hours especially with the pandemic continuing on," said Wills.

The executive director says that federal money is being used to make sure they still have jobs since revenue is way down and free fares will be offered for the rest of the year so customers can maintain social distancing.

"That's kind of what we are using for their one-time bonus we are giving them this week. We are also using that money to off-set our sales tax loss and other income that dropped so we don't have to lay anyone off and maintain service. We are using that money and part of it is going to them," said  Harris.

Harris adds that they need to be very careful with how they spend the money, since they don't know how long ridership will be down.