Robach

Another regular monthly business-meeting of Local 282 of the Amalgamated Transit Union (“What’s ‘Ah-Two?’”) bit the dust the other night (Thursday, October 16, 2008).
The excitement at this meeting (poorly attended of course) was the appearance of N.Y. State Senator Joe Robach (“ROW-bach” as in “Johann Sebastian Bach”).
Union Business-Agent Frank Falzone (“Foul-ZONE”) was quietly reading his report, when Robach strode in.
“I hereby suspend the regular order of business. Hi, Joe! How ya doin’?” Frank said.
“I really don’t know what to say,” Robach said, as he turned and faced us.
“I’ve lived in Rochester all my life, and rode bus when I was younger.”
“We lived at the end of Lake Ave., and I rode bus to work.”
“I’d fall asleep on the bus, and the driver got up to wake me.”
“‘Wake up, Joe. This is where ya get off!’”
I used to do that. When I had the morning Park-and-Ride from Fairport, I’d look for Blondie in East Rochester at Locust St.
If she wasn’t there, I’d glance down Locust to see if she was coming. And if she was, I stopped.
Similarly, I drove the a.m. Joseph Ave. trip to Edison Tech.
It was the slums; awful. Started out the school-year with a full bus (48), and ended up with 15.
“What happened to everyone else?” I’d ask. “Prison?” (Some had been shot dead.)
Some mornings I’d see kids running for the bus-stop.
I used to get excoriated by management; “If these kids can’t get to the bus-stop on time, pass ‘em up!
Baloney! These kids wanted to get to school. I ain’t lettin’ ‘em down.
One time early in the school-year I’m bombin’ down Joseph, and “Hey; those kids want the bus!”
“So wha’d ya pick up them for?” management asked, “A road-supervisor went by and there’s no stop.”
“Yeah, but there’s supposed to be,” I said.
“It’s not their fault the bus-company can’t get its act together.”
“They gave me sheets of paper assigning them to that stop.”
(That stop remained signless for almost four months.)
“I’m on vacation next week,” I’d tell everyone.
“Ya better allow for that, and a jerk driver.”
“I know yaz all, and where to find yaz; but my replacement won’t.”
“Management thinks we’re stupid, and completely disrespects us.”
“Uh-oh........” I think to myself. “Ya walked into it, Joe. Prepare to endure a loud litany of mistreatment.”
“So how long have you guys been without a contract?” Joe asked.
“21 months,” Frank said.
Joe is Republican, but “for cryin’ out loud! Don’t these guys have any respect for those doing the work?”
Joe is Republican, but very feet-on-the-ground.
In fact, an old Democrat turned Republican, since he thought the Republican Party was ascending.
The Democrat challenging him is an old pol supported by fatcat corporations. He once lawyered a corporation dragged into court for shipping jobs overseas.
He has dropped to mud-slinging, the only way to challenge a feet-on-the-ground politician.
And he’s being funded by those same fatcat corporations. They’re noisily claiming he doesn’t reflect the values of his district.
Well, yes; not exactly. He is REPUBLICAN after all.
But not the image of Limbaugh.
“So what you’re telling me is I shouldn’t attend this press-briefing celebrating the fare reduction,” Joe said.
“The ones who benefit from that are the suburbanites,” Frank interjected. “The ones that really need the bus don’t. A monthly city bus-pass remains the same.”
“The other guy that benefits is the head honcho, with all the favorable press,” someone added.
“He’s using taxpayer money to reward himself and his suburban friends,” Frank said.
“He also awards bonuses to management employees,” a mechanic added. “You may have heard of the TOPS program. A management surveyor gets on at the barns, rides downtown, and then back to the barns. The surveyor then turns in a report on how well the system is managed, but of course he does; it’s management praising management.”
“And that’s only one tiny part of the system,” someone said.
“Maybe ya should go to this shindig and ask how he lowered fares yet not give us a contract.”
“If you actually see head honcho, you’re doing better than me,” Frank added.
“He never shows at negotiations; sends only his minions.”
“Who was that guy with the flattop?” Joe asked.
“That’s Jack Garrity; we always hammered out directly with him,” Frank said.
“He was once a bus-driver.”
(Garrity was head honcho when I was there.)
“Current head honcho won’t even ride a bus at all.”
“Neither would Jack Garrity,” I thought to myself. “Associate with the riffraff? You have to be kidding!”
“The reason we’ve been at impasse so long, is we never can arrange to meet. They always stonewall.”
“I also can’t believe you guys can’t ask for police when threatened on a bus,” Robach said.
“Nope; call the radio first,” a driver said.
“Then they send out a road-supervisor to blame the bus-driver and approve the miscreant.”
“I got fired for wanting to throw a violent passenger off the bus!” said Craig Fien (“FEEN”), a union-rep.
“27 years; and they called it insubordination,” Frank said. “They just wanted to fire him.”
“This used to be a good job, but not any more,” someone added. “Three years in Iraq honorably serving my country, and I come back to this. The Army was a picnic!”

Local 282 of the nationwide Amalgamated Transit Union is my old bus-union at Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove transit-bus for 16&1/2 years (1977-1993). My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that.

“What’s ‘ah-two?’” is something my mother asked seeing my ATU (Amalgamated Transit Union) button.

“Frank Falzone” is one of two paid, full-time union officials. They work for Local 282; not Transit.

A “Park-and-Ride” was a commuter bus-service to the suburbs.

“Fairport” and “East Rochester” are both suburbs east of Rochester; first East Rochester and then Fairport.

“Blondie” was a passenger in East Rochester. I called her that because she had long blonde hair.

“Edison Tech” is a technical high-school west of Rochester. —It was originally in the city, but a new school was built on an old landfill in the western Rochester outskirts.

RE: “So what you’re telling me is I shouldn’t attend this press-briefing celebrating the fare reduction.......” —Regional Transit will reduce bus-fare; the only transit operation nationwide to do so.

Buses are stored overnight inside in “the barns,” on the east side of Rochester.

A “union-rep” is a union representative, there to intercede with management in favor of union-members.