Not much fireworks

Thursday night (March 19, 2009), was the regular monthly business-meeting of Local 282 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, my old bus-union at Regional Transit Service.
Local 282 is the Rochester division of the nationwide Amalgamated Transit Union. (“What’s ‘Ah-Two?’”)
Even though I’m a retiree, and can no longer vote on union business, I continue to attend these meetings, to -1) support my union (against a bunch of management jerks); and -2) the likelihood of verbal fireworks: threats, bombast, and fisticuffs.
I’m the only retiree that does; and, as I noted to a once-fellow employee, fireworks is blog material.
I was led to believe extreme fireworks would occur at this meeting, because a national representative of the Amalgamated Transit Union had come to our meeting from Washington D.C.
Apparently our local is not in compliance with some national bylaw requiring the office of President and Business-Agent be combined in one position.
In our local the President and Business-Agent are two separate positions.
This is apparently the way it was eons ago when our local was formed.
Many locals have since been founded across the nation, where the offices of local President and union Business-Agent were combined in one position.
Our local is the only one remaining nationwide with the two positions separated.
The other locals have only one full-time union official.
The Recording-Secretary/Treasurer is usually part-time.
In our local the Recording-Secretary is another official (I think voluntary; although he may be part-time), and the Business-Agent is also the Treasurer.
Our membership is always complaining about the cost of maintaining our local — e.g. two full-time officers as opposed to only one.
Our bus-driving membership isn’t very union oriented. It’s a reflection that bus-drivers are pretty much on their own.
Bus-driver contact with the Company is little more than -a) reporting for work, possibly for a bus assignment; and -b) occasional forays with Transit managers.
With what little contact they have with each other, the bus-drivers can swap stories about how awful the union is, and only ask for union representation when an encounter with management goes awry.
It’s an environment that fosters rumor and garbled facts. —Wild accusations totally off-the-mark.
Bus-drivers think they can fiddle management on their own, that management is reasonable enough to offset what little help they think the Union might afford.
But they aren’t. Transit management is capricious and arbitrary; a bunch of overpaid jerks on day-long donut-break.
Management knows the drivers bad-mouth the Union, so they do what they can to stoke this; mainly stonewall every union move.
We are forced to arbitrate everything; they refuse to be reasonable and negotiate.
Arbitrations cost money; a cost that gets passed onto union membership.
A Union lawyer takes part, and charges for his services. —The Union thereafter assesses the membership; although the Business-Agent tries to keep the assessment to about $10 per week.
18 proposed arbitrations were voted on at this meeting alone, and 250 more are awaiting action.
Which is outrageous; it was nothing like that when I was driving.
The local can hardly keep up with the lawyer fees; assessments in the future (not voted on) pay that.
Beyond that, a contract has been stonewalled for almost three years. (We are currently following the old contract; and when a new contract is signed, there will be a large back-pay to pay the wage-increase retroactively.)
The guy from D.C. notices this all: -A) that our contract negotiations are at impasse; and -B) 250 arbitrations are in the hopper.
Parties and similar union functions are no longer possible; all the money goes to lawyer fees.

One proposed arbitration voted on the other night was: a bus-driver had been “written-up” by a road-supervisor for some minor infraction, which he tried to protest.
Management’s position was that the “write-up” wasn’t discipline, yet the write-up would go in the driver’s file.
“If it’s not discipline,” the guy from D.C. butted in, “I say make them eat that; that that write-up can’t be considered when considering discipline.”
“Not how it works,” said my old once-fellow employee, who’s still driving bus, and is a union-representative. “You have the right to protest a write-up, per clause in our contract.”
“All those write-ups get trotted out when they wanna discipline someone,” others said.
“If they wanna call it not discipline,” D.C.-guy said; “make them eat that.”
“Into the minutes,” my once-fellow employee said.
Around-and-around we went; yet the supposed fireworks over the number of full-time union positions never occurred.
D.C.-guy noted he heard indications he had come to put our current union-officials out of their jobs. —The usual kind of misinformed innuendo that goes on in the Drivers’ Room at Regional Transit. (Same thing I witnessed 15+ years ago.)
Bad-mouth the Union at any cost.

Yet -a) 250+ arbitrations, and -b) no contract after three years, and no wonder the drivers are like they are.
“Bridges have been burned. Seems the Union hates Transit, and Transit management hates the Union.
Years ago, when Garrity was head-honcho, his door was always open.
Now the current head-honcho’s door is closed.”
“He won’t even attend contract negotiations,” the Business-Agent added. “More interested in getting his pimply-puss on the local media!”
“If contract negotiations are at impasse,” D.C.-guy added; “ya don’t consider a final offer.
Ya make them go to impasse.
Bridges have been burned. Usually management wants a contract as much as the Union. My mission is to repair the bridges.”
“What if they spit in your eye?” the Business-Agent asked.
“No one spits in my eye,” said D.C.-guy. “Time for the olive-branch. No other locals are in this predicament.”
The old waazoo; olive-branch time. I have the feeling D.C.-guy has no idea how wacko Transit is. He’ll get smacked with that olive-branch.
“Gotta get off the dime,” he says.
“Sure,” Transit will say. “10¢, please!”
It’s gotten to the point the only thing that will work is political pressure; settle/negotiate or no funding. Time to end the donut-break.

For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (“the Company”), the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY. My stroke October 26, 1993 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.

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

RE: “We are forced to arbitrate everything......” —A dispute is brought before an impartial arbitrator (agreed on by both parties), presented, and then the arbitrator decides the outcome. (The arbitrator is not a union employee, nor Transit.)

Union employees work for “the Company” per “contract.” It sets wages, work-rules, etc.

RE: “‘Written-up’ by a road-supervisor.......” A “road-supervisor” was a non-revenue employee for -a) managing the bus-drivers on the road; and -b) intervening in customer disputes. Managing the bus-drivers included “writing them up” for rule-infractions.

“Discipline” was to render time off without pay, or similar — with a written letter of discipline in the employee’s file.

The “Drivers’ Room” at Regional Transit is the room where bus-drivers assemble to report for work, or be called for work.

Back when I was driving bus, the head-honcho at Regional Transit was Jack “Garrity.” (That was years ago. Since then Garrity retired, and was replaced by another, who has since retired, and was replaced by another.)

RE: “Time to end the donut-break........” —My wife tried to call Human Resources at Regional Transit, left a message, and no one ever called back. This was done numerous times. “Best time to call that Christy-lady is 8 a.m.,” our union-prez said. It worked; we called her at 8 a.m. and got her. “Must be after 8:30 she’s on donut-break for the rest of the day,” I observed.