The president of the union representing Jackson’s bus drivers said he thinks membership is “98 percent” likely to vote for a strike amid stalled contract negotiations with the company that runs JTRAN.
If members of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1208 vote later on Friday to strike, Charles Tornes, the president, said the union will let the company know when the workers plan to stop working.
The union has been negotiating with MV Transportation, the company contracted to run JTRAN since early 2024, about pay raises and other issues. Tornes said the last day of negotiations was Wednesday.
“We’re at an impasse,” he told Mississippi Today on Friday.
In an open letter to the city released Thursday, MV Transportation claimed the union had rejected a company proposal that would have raised wages for some employees.
“Rather than recognize the realities of a difficult situation and seek to find common ground, local union leaders flatly refused every proposal presented, including proposals to get the help of a federal mediator in order to resolve our differences,” the letter said.
Tornes said the company’s description of its proposal in the letter was inaccurate.
“Well, absolutely all that is false,” he said.
The potential strike comes as MV Transportation is proposing an overhaul to the city’s bus system that would shorten the work day by two hours, eliminate two routes, cease Saturday services and expand on-demand “microtransit” services, which involve on-demand, shared rides in smaller vehicles.
Scott Crawford and other advocates concerned with the actions of the Trump administration, met with a staffer of U.S. Sen. Hyde-Smith to voice their concerns at her offices in the Pinnacle Building in downtown Jackson, Friday, March 21, 2025. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi TodayThe city’s Planning and Development Department brought the redesign before the Jackson City Council on June 2, but the council did not vote and referred the agenda item to a planning committee.
The proposed changes alarmed a vocal contingent of bus riders in Jackson who rely on JTRAN to get around the city.
“Nothing happens in my world without JTRAN,” Scott Crawford, a Jackson resident and disability rights advocate, said.
It has also drawn union opposition. The union said it had asked the company for details of the redesign, but the company never provided it.
“Of course, the public is against it and we’re against it,” Tornes said. “We think all the routes we have are essential.”
MV Transportation and the union have been negotiating a contract since a previous collective-bargaining agreement expired in December 2025.
The union and MV Transportation have sparred in the past, with members voting to strike for two weeks in 2024.
Federal mediators ultimately assisted in resolving the dispute.
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