The third time worked.

After rejecting two previous offers, union drivers with GRTC’s CARE paratransit service voted to approve the latest offer from the service’s operator, Cincinnati-based First Transit Inc.

Drivers voted Nov. 2 to accept an immediate $1 an hour increase in pay, retroactive to Oct. 1, according to Frank Tunstall III, president and business agent for Local 1220 of the Amalgamated Transit Union that represents the drivers.

The increase will raise the starting pay for drivers to $13 an hour and the top pay to $14.55 an hour, Mr. Tunstall said.

The contract provides for the top pay to go up to $15 an hour in May 2019 and awards a 2 percent pay increase across the board in May 2020, the year the contract is to expire.

Such pay, though, is still well below the $19 per hour First Transit gets reimbursed by GRTC for labor costs.

Mr. Tunstall said the new contract also preserves the health care program under which the company pays 80 percent and the drivers 20 percent and also ends the unlimited overtime the company could force drivers to work.

“There is now a ceiling on the amount of time a driver can be required to work,” Mr. Tunstall said. “Of course, those who are willing to work more overtime can do so, but the new language means they cannot be forced to work past the limit we agreed to.”

Mr. Tunstall said the drivers “were not happy,” but understood “this was likely the best we could do.”

Currently, there are about 70 full-time and 14 part-time CARE van drivers the union represents, leaving plenty of vacancies. If all of the driver slots were filled, Mr. Tunstall said, there would be 90 full-time and 30 part-time drivers.

He said drivers feel abandoned by City Hall and GRTC for allowing the company to get reimbursed at a higher rate than they are willing to pay employees.

“They just can’t understand why this is allowed to happen,” he said. — JEREMY M. LAZARUS