So Why would Trimet lie to its union employees?

That's kind of a stupid question of course. Anything to break the will of the union workforce.
But in THIS case Trimet chooses to say that the Oregonian has requested the payroll records of union workers.

There is no public records request for the union employees earnings, I went through the public records request log.

The public records requests were for the non union employees.

There is only one reason, Trimet managers, thrashing again anticipating more 'bad press' took it upon themselves to throw in the union payroll, hoping of course it will distract from the non union wages.

These executives are as self serving and selfish as a human being can be. They have no problem attempting to throw the union workers under the bus if it could save them.

They have been doing this since Mcfarlane's arrival.