Driving Worker Power: The Amalgamated Transit Union

Since 1892, the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) has represented transit and allied workers in the U.S. and Canada. Today, the ATU represents over 200,000 bus drivers, ferry and subway operators, mechanics, and other transportation professionals across 44 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and nine Canadian provinces. A member of the AFL-CIO and the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), the ATU helps workers organize local unions, negotiate contracts, and ensure their rights are protected and that contracts are enforced. 

In addition, the ATU is building a workforce development strategy to help members advance along transit career ladders and attract new workers to the sector and the union. Specifically, ATU has been developing Registered Apprenticeship (RA) programs for many good transit jobs, including drivers, mechanics, and light rail operators. Apprenticeship has not historically been widely used in the transit sector. The focus on workforce development in general, and Registered Apprenticeship specifically, expands the union’s mission beyond organizing and contract negotiations. Below, we highlight three elements of ATU’s workforce development strategy that have created pathways to good jobs, centered worker voice, and strengthened the union.

Investing in High Road Strategies 

In 2017, the California Workforce Development Board unveiled its High Road Training Partnership (HRTP) initiative, which has only grown since then. According to the state workforce board’s website, HRTPs “forge and nurture industry partnerships around regional job sectors to improve equity, climate resilience, and job quality,” and this work “increases access to good jobs, creates pathways for job growth, meets workforce needs, and builds worker voice.”

A statewide consortium of transit agencies, community colleges, and the ATU locals makes up California Transit Works (CTW), one of the HRTPs funded by the state. The training programs range from Registered Apprenticeships to continuing education, such as the specialized training required for transit workers at local agencies moving from carbon-based buses to hydrogen-powered and battery-electric buses. After seeing these programs successfully combine classroom learning, hands-on experience, and worker support in a meaningful way, the ATU and CTW secured federal funding in 2023 to expand this work, replicating the HRTP model across 13 regions in California. 

The ATU’s model is “High Road” because it focuses on job quality by aligning workforce development with union-negotiated standards, progressive wage structures, and clearly defined career pathways tied to RA programs. Apprentices earn wages while they learn through structured on-the-job training combined with classroom instruction, allowing workers to develop skills while maintaining stable employment. As Jamaine Gibson, Director of Apprenticeship and Workforce Development for the ATU, said, “Because the programs are jointly governed by labor and management, training reflects real workplace conditions and supports long-term careers with strong wages, benefits, and advancement opportunities.” 

And the work isn’t stopping there. The ATU is using their relationship with California’s Workforce Development Board as a model to expand to other states, including Oregon, as well as localities like Seattle-King County.

Expanding Registered Apprenticeship 

In 2015, the ATU Local 265 in San Jose, California, created a bus operator Registered Apprenticeship program with the Santa Clara Valley Transit Authority and other employer partners. Since then, over 1,000 operators have earned Journeyworker cards as professional coach operators. Furthermore, apprentices can receive college credits from Mission College Santa Clara while completing the Local’s RA program. When they graduate, they receive a Mission College college-credit Certificate of Achievement.

Many other ATU Locals across the country have followed suit and adopted RA programs. In Indianapolis, Indiana, Local 1070 partnered with IndyGo and Ivy Tech Community College to develop and run apprenticeship programs, including a diesel apprenticeship with a pathway to a technical certificate in diesel technology from Ivy Tech. In Washington, DC, Local 689 developed apprenticeship and mentorship programs with WMATA and Fairfax Connector. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Local 85 and St. Louis, Missouri Local 788 are expanding successful mentorship programs into Registered Apprenticeship programs. This model has spread across the country, with success everywhere from the San Francisco Bay Area (Local 265) to Cleveland, Ohio (Local 268), Buffalo, New York (Local 1342), and Jackson, Mississippi (Local 1288).

The ATU’s choice to scale apprenticeship across the country makes sense: apprenticeship centers workers, strengthens the union, and is a High Road Strategy. According to Gibson, “Through apprenticeship, we’re not just creating pathways to good-paying careers; we’re developing future union leaders, strengthening solidarity, and ensuring that workers have a seat at the table in shaping the future of public transit.”

Centering Workers

Registered Apprenticeship programs and the ATU locals’ partnerships with transit agencies ensure that workers have a collective voice in shaping training standards, career pathways, and workforce development investments across the transit industry.

When the employer partners needed mechanics, the highest-paid transit careers, the ATU stepped in with a solution—apprenticeship—that met the needs of both employers and workers. While employers required qualified talent to address shortages, workers needed a pathway to mechanic roles that allowed them to continue supporting their families while they learned the necessary skills. Now, according to a union representative, there are more women and people of color in mechanic roles than ever, because their needs were met in the workforce development process. 

Centering workers’ needs in training has enabled people facing barriers to opportunity to access it. For example, individuals returning to their communities after incarceration often face challenges in finding stable employment. No job, in turn, can lead to a lack of secure housing, transportation, and other necessities. In Indianapolis, a driver noticed a laborer board his bus with an ankle monitor. Understanding that ATU could help provide the stable and secure employment this person needed to succeed while reentering the community, the driver shared details about the opportunities ATU could offer. Now the same bus rider with the ankle monitor is one of the few mechanics with the training needed to work on battery packs for high-voltage vehicles—an emerging technology. 

The ATU invests in its members. Their mentorship program has been replicated across the country in high-road training partnerships. In some regions, the mentorship program is part of a labor-management partnership (see Newark, New Jersey’s Local 819 and Spokane, Washington’s Local 1015). In others, mentorship grows alongside the ATU’s Registered Apprenticeship program (see Austin, Texas’s Local 1091). Mentorship initiatives are led by experienced operators who help new workers through onboarding and workplace integration. Additionally, the union designed and implemented support groups for members based on identities, including for men, women, and trans members. 

Strengthening the Union

Not all labor unions consider workforce development an essential part of their work. They often focus almost exclusively on bargaining for wages and working conditions. But according to a union official, the process of building the apprenticeship programs strengthened the union. Placing union members and leadership directly in the governance and design of workforce training programs strengthens the union and puts it in a better position to serve members well. The ATU supports pathways to move up both in union jobs and into management. This reinforces the union’s value to workers and to employers. And making it easier for workers to access the types of jobs they want solidifies the union’s role in benefiting workers beyond contract negotiations. 

The mentors in the ATU’s mentorship program serve as ambassadors and guides for union members, and act as a conduit between union leadership and union members. And the ATU is building union awareness early, expanding its reach into high schools and even middle schools to introduce transit careers and union membership early, so students understand what kinds of jobs are out there and what it means to be in a union. Through this outreach, students and their families become aware of opportunities to pursue apprenticeships and careers in the transportation industry. 

The Good Jobs Collaborative is excited by the work the ATU is leading across the country to expand Registered Apprenticeship because it centers workers, strengthens unions, and is a High Road Strategy. As Gibson shared with us, “Apprenticeship is more than a workforce development program. It is a powerful organizing tool that helps build stronger unions. When our members have a voice in how workers are trained, mentored, and prepared for the future, we strengthen our position at the bargaining table and demonstrate the value of union membership.”