No Union-Meeting

Yet another union-meeting date drifts into the filmy past.
But no union meeting.

—1) This was apparently because of a day-long election yesterday (Thursday, January 15, 2009) for an RTS Drivers’-Rep, now that previous Drivers’-Rep Craig Fien (“FEEN”) was fired for insubordination — whatever.
Fien had to resign his Drivers’-Rep position because he was running out of money without an income, and had to switch to a job driving truck.
Probably pays about the same, and at least there the cargo isn’t threatening to shoot ya.
Same highway madness, but there the cargo is more compliant.
Transit management, in its infinite wisdom, decided Craig was insubordinate, or ornery enough and thorn-in-the-side enough to be fired.
Yet despite his departure, the union is arbitrating his case.
It’s the old waazoo: management’s inclination to in every case blame its bus-drivers.
So Craig stands up to some passenger who was giving him the business, and wants her removed from his bus. He requests police assistance, feeling physically threatened, and as usual Transit -a) wants to shove the whole matter aside, and use only its own Road-Supervisors to handle the altercation; and -b) wants Craig to just buckle and take the miscreant home.
Craig’s refusal to do so is called “insubordination,” and he gets fired.
Score one for management; they found an excuse to remove a thorn-in-their-side. He was an ornery Drivers’-Rep, and also excellent. Held Management’s feet to the fire.
So an election was held to elect a new Drivers’-Rep to replace Craig.
As a Retiree, I am not privy to stuff like this.
I don’t frequent our old Drivers’ Room every day or see the union’s tiny bulletin board therein.
Meetings have been canceled before, and I knew nothing of it. Just drove up and found a notice on the hall door.
Driving there takes almost an hour.

—2) The drive up
A few still have there Christmas lights lit.
No more glittering strip like last drive up where an entire street was lit up like Broadway.
But I passed a few places that still had their Christmas lights lit. Colored wreaths and Christmas trees.
Years ago our Webster Post-paper ran a photograph of town workers finally removing the Christmas lights from light-poles in June.
My brother Bill weighed in.
“What are they doing that for?” he asked. “They’ll just have to put them back up in six months.”
Look carefully and you can find people that never take their Christmas lights down, but they usually don’t light ‘em.
But there is a house along 5&20 in Bloomfield that keeps electric Christmas candles lit all year in its windows.

For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (“RTS;” “Transit”), the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY. My stroke October 26, 1993 (inducing disability-retirement) ended that. While there I belonged to the local division (“Local 282”) of the nationwide Amalgamated Transit Union. Our local holds a regular business meeting the third Thursday of each month, but last night there was no meeting. —Our union had two elected “Drivers’-Reps” (representative); idea being to implement our contract and advocate for a bus-driver called before management.

RE: “The union is arbitrating......” —What our union is mainly doing nowadays is arbitrating disputes, although Transit management can also initiate an arbitration. The facts of a case are presented to an impartial and noninvolved arbitrator, and he decides the case. The parties involved (Transit and the Union) are to accept his decision; although Transit has been known to refuse, and had to be dragged to court. (They once even refused a court decision.)

Transit used “Road-Supervisors” to check on bus-drivers, and intervene when needed. They were kinda like “transit-police;” but not actually police.

The bus-drivers were assigned work in a “Drivers’ Room;” which had a small union bulletin board off a hallway. As a Retiree, I no longer hit the Drivers’ Room.

Our union meets in an off-property “hall.”

The “Webster Post-paper” was one of the nine Post Publications suburban weekly newspapers purchased by the Messenger Newspaper when the head-honcho of Post Publications retired and sold. It served the small town of Webster, a suburb east of Rochester. (The Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper is from where I retired over three years ago. Best job I ever had.)

“My brother Bill” is my younger brother in northern Delaware.

“5&20” is the main east-west road through our area; State Route 5 and U.S. Route 20, both on the same road. 5&20 is just south of where we live, which is in the rural Town of West Bloomfield, NY. Adjacent is the Town of East Bloomfield, and the small village of “Bloomfield” is within it. I traverse “5&20” to get to nearby Canandaigua.