Sound Transit workers are unionizing with PROTEC17

The following is from PROTEC17:

‘PROTEC17 gave me the resources and support for my ongoing unionizing effort, and it has greatly impacted my life, giving me hope for the future’

SEATTLE, WA (May 19, 2025) — Alongside the rapid expansion of the light rail in the Puget Sound region over the last several years, employees at Sound Transit were seeing the need to come together to protect and enhance the worker-centered culture they had developed. So, for over a year, these employees – working in several different roles across Sound Transit – have been organizing their union with PROTEC17. 

For Sound Transit workers, PROTEC17 is the perfect fit. In addition to representing thousands of public sector workers in similar transit roles throughout the Pacific Northwest, PROTEC17 has a long experience of negotiating successful contracts with King County Executive Dow Constantine – the new Sound Transit CEO. 

“Times are uncertain and there’s strength in numbers,” said Sound Transit employee Tyler Ramirez. “I’m interested in joining the Sound Transit Union to protect what we have and to ensure a fair working environment in the future.”

The first group at Sound Transit to organize with PROTEC17 was the Passenger Information Coordinators (PICs), thanks to former PROTEC17 member Mindi Mezek who joined Sound Transit after leaving her role as a 911 operator at the Washington State Patrol. After filing for certification with the Public Employment Relations Commission (PERC) in early 2024 and bargaining their first contract last fall, the PICs reached a tentative agreement containing strong language and economic wins in late February 2025 – just in time to get approved as a new chapter at PROTEC17’s Regional Executive Committee meeting in March. 

In organizing their union, PICs received an average wage increase of 11.7%, and all PICs will now get guaranteed annual raises of 3% plus an increase of 2% each time they advance on a tiered scale based on length of employment. More than that, their new Collective Bargaining Agreement ensures that benefits and working conditions at Sound Transit can’t be changed on a whim, and performance bonuses are now guaranteed instead of arbitrary decisions.

Since the PICs began organizing in 2024, over 230 Sound Transit employees in other positions are in the process of organizing with PROTEC17, including: Field Activity Specialists, Superintendents, Transit Systems Electronics Technicians, Fare Ambassadors and Supervisors, Transit Systems Program Managers, and employees in the Environmental & Sustainability Division, the Community Engagement Division, and the Construction Permitting Division. 

For Pam Wrenn, a Senior Project Manager, having a union not only helps her and her co-workers have a better, more secure life, but it supports all of the passengers in her community.

Gunnar Bjerk, a Senior Project Controls Specialist at Sound Transit. Photo: PROTEC17

“My ability to serve our passengers will be so much greater if I can also rest assured that my pay, my benefits, and my working conditions will be stable and not changed at the whim of management,” said Wrenn. “This will allow me to take care of myself and my family, as well as the community, and not feel like I need to put everything on the line to do the job I love so much.”

All of this organizing momentum has really invigorated leaders like Gunnar Bjerk, a Senior Project Controls Specialist: 

“PROTEC17 gave me the resources and support for my ongoing unionizing effort, and it has greatly impacted my life, giving me hope for the future,” he said. 

There is a new website devoted entirely to Sound Transit employees who are interested in learning more about the unionizing process: soundtransitunion.org. Also, union member leaders are hosting monthly tabling events outside of Union Station (400 S. Jackson St., Seattle) to chat with their colleagues about joining PROTEC17. The next tabling event is this Wed., May 21 from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. 

Sound Transit employees with questions about unionizing can also reach out to PROTEC17’s Organizing Director Jessica Olivas at jessica@protec17.org. 

PROTEC17 is a member-powered union inspiring action, advancing equity, and building community, representing over 10,000 public sector workers in public health, and city, county, and state government – including thousands of transit professionals – across the Pacific Northwest.