A year after a failed first attempt, workers at the private company that runs the city bus system are trying to form a union.

An official with the National Labor Relations Board said Monday a vote to approve or reject a union at MV Transportation Inc. will be Sept. 20.

Riders board a bus at Ninth and Massachusetts street, one of many stops for The 'T' across the city. Employees of the transit system are set to vote again on forming a union on Sept. 20.

Officials with MV Transportation and the Amalgamated Transit Union, which is trying to organize Lawrence’s transit workers, were not available for comment Monday. Employees for the T contacted by the Journal-World also declined comment.

But Jon Monson, MV Transportation’s president, said in an Aug. 14 letter to Lawrence employees that union representation was unlikely to help them increase their wages and benefits.

He suggested the company’s contract with the city valued near $1.7 million this year left MV Transportation with little room to offer more to workers.

“No union, however well-intentioned, can or will guarantee an increase in compensation when the funds are not available within the business’ income,” Monson wrote.

The city cannot be forced to renegotiate the contract until December 2003, he said.

The first vote to unionize workers at MV Transportation came in August 2001. It failed on a 15-15 vote.

“Since the union must get a majority, they lost,” said F. Rozier Sharp, director of the labor board’s regional office in Overland Park.

At the time workers said they were fed up with poor pay, poor benefits and long work weeks.

Monson’s letter pointed out improvements in those areas over the last year.

l New drivers now make $8.75 an hour, up from $8.50 a year ago.

l The company has increased its matching donation for retirement accounts by 10 percent.

l MV Transportation started providing dental insurance at no additional cost to employees.

l It also started offering four- and five-day work weeks; employees a year ago said six-day weeks were the norm.

City Manager Mike Wildgen said the city took no position on the union effort.

“It’s a private business situation,” he said. “We didn’t (take a position) before, and we don’t now.”

The Amalgamated Transit Union claims to be the largest union representing transit workers in the United States and Canada. The union has more than 175,000 members in 46 states and nine Canadian provinces.

If approved, the union would represent all regular full- and part-time drivers, dispatchers, reservationists, utility employees and mechanics who choose to join. Roughly 50 employees would be eligible to join the union.