I thought there was already a blog post with this title, and I was looking for it to add a few links.
So here is the gist of what I thought I'd already posted:
Metro and Bi State need to be separated. Metro carries the dinky little Bi-State Development Agency (the airport, arch trams and parking, etc). Metro needs to be run by people that have experience in Metro- in particular former drivers. John Nations has ridden the bus a few times as publicity stunt. A Metro executive told me that it wasn't feasible for someone like John Nations to commute from Chesterfield to Metro (via the Olive bus and the Metrolink). Why? Public transit in St. Louis is too slow.
The CEO appointment is to groom political careers. John Nations wants to be governor. Nations is famous for telling his drivers during negotiations that "As soon as I become Governor I'm changing Missouri to a Right To Work state and elimination the unions."
He gave himself a raise a while back. For $325K a year heading an agency where ALL monies are public- $350 million a year in government subsidies and grants, and rider fares- he can't ride his own transit 4 hours a day to get to and from work?
The people that work in minimum wage job in Chesterfield and live downtown do.
http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2014/08/26/big-raise-for-metro-ceo-angers-union-bus-drivers/
Metro's drivers went 6 years without a contract. If you don't know about this please take a look:
From 2013:
http://labortribune.com/after-18-months-transit-union-talks-with-metro-going-nowhere/
2014 "oreo" incident:
http://fox2now.com/2014/09/12/racial-elements-fuel-dispute-between-metro-and-transit-union/#
"Rally for Respect" 2014
http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/st-louis-transit-union-approves-first-contract-metro-five-years-protests-oreo-incident
Page 5 of the doc, from the Union's magazine:
http://www.atu.org/atu-pdfs/SO_IT14_USWEB.pdf
Health care and pensions secure:
http://www.atu.org/media/releases/st-louis-metro-workers-declare-victory-secure-agreement-preserving-retirement-security
Don't forget that Metro is raising fares again this July. They need $5 million, the same amount of money they spend every year in "contributions to outside entities". This is usually political campaign contributions. By appointing CEO, the governor guarantees a contribution to his campaign. Call Metro if you think this is wrong. Call them and demand an explanation. Call them and demand the CEO salary be lowered - not to the $250K he received before, but 1/2 that- $125K. Demand the CEO ride public transit at least once a week.
OPTINSTL
OCCUPY! PUBLIC TRANSIT Image by Eric Drooker for Occupy Wall Street, click on image for Drooker's website
Showing posts with label bus drivers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bus drivers. Show all posts
Sunday, March 13, 2016
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
JOHN NATIONS NEEDS TO BE FIRED, NOT GIVEN A $75,000 A YEAR RAISE!
On what planet does CEO John Nations think he deserves a $75,000 pay raise? Now he makes $325,000 dollars a year.
http://www.kmov.com/news/local/Metro-CEO-gets-pay-rise-despite-contract-impasse-rate-hikes-272799461.html
And whether you ride public transportation or not, YOU ARE PAYING FOR IT.
If you are one of the many public transit riders that is already calling Governor Nixon (who appointed Nations) about Michael Brown's murder, why not take another minute to demand he fire Nations? Call Illinois Governor Quinn, too!
If this outrageous pay raise weren't enough, have a look at how racist Nations treats his mostly African-American drivers at the bargaining table. He is the modern day equivalent of a slave master.
St. Louis, MO – The Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) has called on Missouri Governor Jay Nixon and Illinois Governor Pat Quinn to remove Metro CEO John Nations for his failure to “correct the outrageous conduct of his staff at the bargaining table” in a letter to the Governors.
In the letter, ATU points to evidence of race baiting by members of Metro’s negotiating committee who offered members of ATU Local 788 a recipe for OREO Cookies at the end of a very heated bargaining session. There have been no contract talks since. Metro workers have gone three years without a new contract and six years without a wage increase.
“While the majority of the bus operators at ATU Local 788 are African-American, most mechanics are White, as is the President,” ATU International President wrote in the letter. “The obvious message to us with the recipe was that our union is white on the inside and black on the outside, like the cookie. This transparent race baiting went well beyond the bounds of human decency.”
The incident occurred as Nations engaged in illegal activity by encouraging mechanics to leave the ATU and form their own union. He has publically dismissed the “OREO” incident as a Metro employee sharing his baking hobby.
What a load of crap. Nations is so firmly entrenched in the St. Louis "Good Ole Boy" Network he think that he answers to no one and can act with impunity! I hope transit riders will join Metro drivers in challenging this, and in getting him fired!
http://www.stltoday.com/news/multimedia/videos/metro-workers-picket-outside-offices/html_2a08c1df-30ce-56b5-9bbb-3f4733fa665a.html
Read the whole report from the Union here:
http://www.atu.org/media/releases/atu-calls-on-govs-nixon-and-quinn-to-remove-metro-ceo-nations
Other posts about Nations:
http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/04/what-metro-is-doing-with-your-money-and.html
http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/03/do-metro-executives-ride-public-transit.html
http://www.kmov.com/news/local/Metro-CEO-gets-pay-rise-despite-contract-impasse-rate-hikes-272799461.html
And whether you ride public transportation or not, YOU ARE PAYING FOR IT.
If you are one of the many public transit riders that is already calling Governor Nixon (who appointed Nations) about Michael Brown's murder, why not take another minute to demand he fire Nations? Call Illinois Governor Quinn, too!
If this outrageous pay raise weren't enough, have a look at how racist Nations treats his mostly African-American drivers at the bargaining table. He is the modern day equivalent of a slave master.
St. Louis, MO – The Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) has called on Missouri Governor Jay Nixon and Illinois Governor Pat Quinn to remove Metro CEO John Nations for his failure to “correct the outrageous conduct of his staff at the bargaining table” in a letter to the Governors.
In the letter, ATU points to evidence of race baiting by members of Metro’s negotiating committee who offered members of ATU Local 788 a recipe for OREO Cookies at the end of a very heated bargaining session. There have been no contract talks since. Metro workers have gone three years without a new contract and six years without a wage increase.
“While the majority of the bus operators at ATU Local 788 are African-American, most mechanics are White, as is the President,” ATU International President wrote in the letter. “The obvious message to us with the recipe was that our union is white on the inside and black on the outside, like the cookie. This transparent race baiting went well beyond the bounds of human decency.”
The incident occurred as Nations engaged in illegal activity by encouraging mechanics to leave the ATU and form their own union. He has publically dismissed the “OREO” incident as a Metro employee sharing his baking hobby.
What a load of crap. Nations is so firmly entrenched in the St. Louis "Good Ole Boy" Network he think that he answers to no one and can act with impunity! I hope transit riders will join Metro drivers in challenging this, and in getting him fired!
http://www.stltoday.com/news/multimedia/videos/metro-workers-picket-outside-offices/html_2a08c1df-30ce-56b5-9bbb-3f4733fa665a.html
Read the whole report from the Union here:
http://www.atu.org/media/releases/atu-calls-on-govs-nixon-and-quinn-to-remove-metro-ceo-nations
Other posts about Nations:
http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/04/what-metro-is-doing-with-your-money-and.html
http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/03/do-metro-executives-ride-public-transit.html
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
ST LOUIS SPIKES
There was a Metro bus crash yesterday because a passenger attacked the driver.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/metro-bus-crashes-downtown-after-passenger-assaults-driver/article_b7f39fe2-f03a-5bce-ab54-5a84646ac304.html
http://www.kmov.com/news/crime/Metro-Bus-driver-hospitalized-after-being-assaulted-while-driving-266954791.html
If I had to guess which bus line I'd say the #41. And as the union comments, this type of thing is far too common on buses.
Bus driver's take all the anger for everything that is wrong with Metro, and the heat for a lot of what is wrong in the city.
These spikes in violence and crime seem to be so bewildering to our "leaders". It's as if they live in a completely different city, in fact, a different WORLD, than the rest of us.
Look at the crime maps of St. Louis, and it is obvious that these spikes are happening in the poorest and most downtrodden parts of the city.
The financial crisis of 2008, which we supposedly are "recovering" from, is not over. In fact, it hasn't even begun. The bank bailouts did NOTHING to fix the economy. The bailouts simply shifted the problem.
And all of this screaming you hear about our roads and infrastructure, the insolvency of our state and government bodies, where do you think this money crunch is being felt the most?
At the bottom.
Yes, you can keep taking a few dollars a week from SNAP recipients, make unemployment benefits harder to obtain, raise sales taxes, ignore our failing school systems, and keep adding more police to already overly-policed neighborhoods (more cops make bad neighborhoods worse), and all of us will pay the price.
This city treats North St. Louis like a concentration camp. Half of this city doesn't exist, except for the crime reports (and the poor of this city making our legal system and lawyers and private prison owners wealthier).
And the more desperate the people become, the harder the state cracks down, the more explosive it is going to get. The less they will be able to "contain" the spikes to the areas where no "decent" person will go.
I wish that not only were Metro officials required to ride the buses, I wish all the local politicians were required to actually walk the streets and ride transit and talk to people.
And police should be required to "walk the beat" and get to know the people in the communities they police.
And, yes, Metro needs more security. And they need to pay their drivers more. Bus drivers take a lot of crap, and while some of them are jerks-- or jerks sometimes, they are people, after all, like the rest of us-- they deserve to be treated with more respect, not just from riders, but from the company that employs them.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/metro-bus-crashes-downtown-after-passenger-assaults-driver/article_b7f39fe2-f03a-5bce-ab54-5a84646ac304.html
http://www.kmov.com/news/crime/Metro-Bus-driver-hospitalized-after-being-assaulted-while-driving-266954791.html
If I had to guess which bus line I'd say the #41. And as the union comments, this type of thing is far too common on buses.
Bus driver's take all the anger for everything that is wrong with Metro, and the heat for a lot of what is wrong in the city.
These spikes in violence and crime seem to be so bewildering to our "leaders". It's as if they live in a completely different city, in fact, a different WORLD, than the rest of us.
Look at the crime maps of St. Louis, and it is obvious that these spikes are happening in the poorest and most downtrodden parts of the city.
The financial crisis of 2008, which we supposedly are "recovering" from, is not over. In fact, it hasn't even begun. The bank bailouts did NOTHING to fix the economy. The bailouts simply shifted the problem.
And all of this screaming you hear about our roads and infrastructure, the insolvency of our state and government bodies, where do you think this money crunch is being felt the most?
At the bottom.
Yes, you can keep taking a few dollars a week from SNAP recipients, make unemployment benefits harder to obtain, raise sales taxes, ignore our failing school systems, and keep adding more police to already overly-policed neighborhoods (more cops make bad neighborhoods worse), and all of us will pay the price.
This city treats North St. Louis like a concentration camp. Half of this city doesn't exist, except for the crime reports (and the poor of this city making our legal system and lawyers and private prison owners wealthier).
And the more desperate the people become, the harder the state cracks down, the more explosive it is going to get. The less they will be able to "contain" the spikes to the areas where no "decent" person will go.
I wish that not only were Metro officials required to ride the buses, I wish all the local politicians were required to actually walk the streets and ride transit and talk to people.
And police should be required to "walk the beat" and get to know the people in the communities they police.
And, yes, Metro needs more security. And they need to pay their drivers more. Bus drivers take a lot of crap, and while some of them are jerks-- or jerks sometimes, they are people, after all, like the rest of us-- they deserve to be treated with more respect, not just from riders, but from the company that employs them.
Monday, April 7, 2014
WILL THINGS GO BACK TO NORMAL?
I missed the news tonight and didn't see the coverage of the Metro Blue Flu.
I found this video http://youtu.be/s_qm4eUrqqo
(The person that posted it is mostly whining about how the drivers "pulled this crap" and made everyone late for work.)
Bus drivers take the brunt of the riders' hatred for Metro. But for the most part they don't deserve it.
I understand it is an inconvenience. But as I've said before, no change comes without inconvenience.
You know who was inconvenient? Rosa Parks. No one on that bus got home on time that day.
The people of this city deserve a decent transit system, and that means taking care of the drivers.
And if you make less than $15 an hour, maybe you should consider striking, too. A job should pay enough to live on. All the countries that pay a livable minimum wage had people that were willing to make the sacrifices and suffer the inconveniences necessary to make society better for everyone.
I don't understand why every single profession doesn't have a union.
Tomorrow, if there is another blue flu or a full out strike, let's be clear that as much as Metro executives whine that they have to follow ALL the federal guidelines to the letter, they WILL bring in people to drive the buses that don't have the proper driver's license or DOT certification.
Metro is (currently) not about Public Transportation. That is just the way they funnel funds for "business development." I think that is about to change.
I hope the bus drivers strike, and if they do, I hope it goes citywide.
Saint Louis, you get what you ask for, but you have to ask.
And sometimes that means you have to be inconvenient.
EDIT: This state needs to abolish "right to work". Right to work means "an employer has the right to fire you for any reason, offer any wage and any condition, and destroy the labor unions". Citizens of this "greatest country in the world" are not even granted the right to a bathroom break, except in five states. (The federal government only regulates how breaks are paid, if an employer decides to give them. The government does not provide for any breaks. Not a lot of state offer meal breaks that are legally enforceable, Missouri is not one of them. )
An employer can check your credit and background, record you, track you, but an employee is not allowed to check out an employer. Do they handle their money responsibly? Do they have adequate knowledge and training in business to manage payroll and other responsibilities of owning a business? As I said, all jobs should have unions, and minimum wage should be $15. That amount is not random. It is the basic need. And bus drivers deserve at least $25.
I found this video http://youtu.be/s_qm4eUrqqo
(The person that posted it is mostly whining about how the drivers "pulled this crap" and made everyone late for work.)
Bus drivers take the brunt of the riders' hatred for Metro. But for the most part they don't deserve it.
I understand it is an inconvenience. But as I've said before, no change comes without inconvenience.
You know who was inconvenient? Rosa Parks. No one on that bus got home on time that day.
The people of this city deserve a decent transit system, and that means taking care of the drivers.
And if you make less than $15 an hour, maybe you should consider striking, too. A job should pay enough to live on. All the countries that pay a livable minimum wage had people that were willing to make the sacrifices and suffer the inconveniences necessary to make society better for everyone.
I don't understand why every single profession doesn't have a union.
Tomorrow, if there is another blue flu or a full out strike, let's be clear that as much as Metro executives whine that they have to follow ALL the federal guidelines to the letter, they WILL bring in people to drive the buses that don't have the proper driver's license or DOT certification.
Metro is (currently) not about Public Transportation. That is just the way they funnel funds for "business development." I think that is about to change.
I hope the bus drivers strike, and if they do, I hope it goes citywide.
Saint Louis, you get what you ask for, but you have to ask.
And sometimes that means you have to be inconvenient.
EDIT: This state needs to abolish "right to work". Right to work means "an employer has the right to fire you for any reason, offer any wage and any condition, and destroy the labor unions". Citizens of this "greatest country in the world" are not even granted the right to a bathroom break, except in five states. (The federal government only regulates how breaks are paid, if an employer decides to give them. The government does not provide for any breaks. Not a lot of state offer meal breaks that are legally enforceable, Missouri is not one of them. )
An employer can check your credit and background, record you, track you, but an employee is not allowed to check out an employer. Do they handle their money responsibly? Do they have adequate knowledge and training in business to manage payroll and other responsibilities of owning a business? As I said, all jobs should have unions, and minimum wage should be $15. That amount is not random. It is the basic need. And bus drivers deserve at least $25.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)