Union meeting

Another regular monthly business meeting of my so-called “silly” bus-union at Regional Transit Service, comes-and-goes. (Thursday, April 16, 2009.)
While driving bus (for 16&1/2 years [1977-1993] I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY) I belonged to Local 282, the Rochester division of the nationwide Amalgamated Transit Union (“What’s ‘ah-two’”).
I get noisily castigated by my anti-union siblings for attending these meetings, since as a retiree I can’t vote.
I attend these meetings to -1) support my union; and -2) remind my union officials that our pension hasn’t been increased in years.
It can be. It isn’t fixed. But increasing it (or just changing it) has to be agreed to by both the Union and Transit management.
The pension is well-funded enough to increase the payouts.
I usually am the only retiree in attendance; and attend every meeting, more than the average union-member.
I get loudly criticized for leaving a HUGE carbon footprint for future generations.
Although I suspect my Low-Emissions Vehicle spews less pollutants over a 45-mile trip than my loud-mouthed brother’s 454 Chevelle spews just starting up.
And then there is his blatting GeezerGlide, which has been reconfigured with complete disregard for pollution regulations.
He’s trying to maximize power output, and carbon-footprint be damned.
We know, because it stinks.
It ain’t the smell of unburned gasoline.
It ain’t running rich.
But it does stink!
And then there was that noisome blast down Route 65 from our house to 5&20: popping and missing and fuming loudly.
It ran better stock, before he started tuning with his ballpeen.
Chairing the meeting was Radical-Dude, now union vice-president Ray Dunbar (“done-BAR”).
Dunbar was my long-ago compatriot in my union newsletter.
It was his idea.
I ran with it, slamming together a union newsletter with Microsoft Word®.
Dunbar and I would “print” 400 copies on the Union’s copier, and then collate everything.
Then we’d pass it out at Transit at 4:30 in the morning.
It was a lotta work, but great fun.
Dunbar would truck it around to local politicos, who’d then call up Transit to ask what was going on.
Causing weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth among Transit managers.
Per them, everything was hunky-dory at Transit, but then there was our union newsletter, which said otherwise.
“Don’t read that stuff!” the Transit PR-guy shouted. “Just a buncha union activists!”
Most notable was our cartoon of the engine-cradle falling out of a bus in the Overhaul Shop.
Usually that kind of stuff got hidden.
We had immense powah!
The pen is always mightier than the sword.
We had Transit running amuck.
Management would get my newsletter to see what they had to quash.
Dunbar was chairing the meeting because our two union officials were at a conference in Albany.
The bus-drivers are always complaining the Union is selling them out.
I counted only four Regional Transit employees at the meeting I was at — five if you include me.
There were five Lift-Line employees. Lift-Line is our Rochester Dial-a-Bus service, and their employees belong to 282. Lift-Line is affiliated with Transit.
Dunbar said only 27 attended the meetings (there are three meetings); that’s 27 out of 600 or so members.
I attend these meetings partly for the verbal fireworks; the yelling and screaming and threats of fisticuffs.
Fireworks this time were by a Lift-Line employee I had never seen before in my entire life; about how the Union should get it’s act together, and not take any guff from management.
This is what usually happens, a never before seen union-member shows up and makes a fuss.
“Can’t we sue them clowns? Too many arbitrations.”
“We have to follow the Labor-Law,” Dunbar said. “We have to arbitrate before we can sue.”
“Our union officials are in cahoots with management. Our interests count for nothing,” he bellowed. “No one ever listens to us. Thousands should be marching in front of Transit.”
“Um, 27 out of 600,” I thought to myself. I usually just sit quietly with my hands folded, but almost noted that in this case.
My support of my union comes out of up-close-and-personal interface with management madness; observed doing my newsletter.
This is what usually happens.
Become involved in union activities, and ya become a supporter.
Even my friend the “sanctimonious zealot” has become part of it.
“Sanctimonious zealot” is a tub-thumping born-again Catholic Christian zealot — if that’s plausible.
But now as a Union Drivers’ Representative, he’s become a union activist.
I love hearing him rail about various management cardinal sins.

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

My siblings are all flagrantly anti-union.

My “loud-mouthed brother” is my all-knowing, blowhard brother-from-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say. He has a classic 1971 454 cubic inch SS Chevelle, but claims I’m grossly polluting the atmosphere by driving to “silly” union-meetings. (”Silly” is his put-down.)

“GeezerGlide” is what I call all Harley Davidson ElectraGlide cruiser-bikes. My brother-from-Boston has a very laid back Harley Davidson cruiser-bike, and, like many Harley Davidson riders, is over 50 (51). So I call it his GeezerGlide. —It’s been heavily modified to increase power.

The “noisome blast down Route 65 from our house to 5&20” took place two summers ago. We live on State Route 65 in West Bloomfield (a small rural town in Western New York), and “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. —He was gonna take 5&20 back toward home. He had visited me with other siblings.

RE: “Before he started tuning with his ballpeen.....” —My macho blowhard brother is known to fix things with a liberally-applied ballpeen hammer.

RE: “My union newsletter.......” —During my final year at Transit I did a voluntary union newsletter called the “282-News.”

Bus-drivers reported for duty at “4:30 in the morning” to be assigned buses that pulled out at 4:45 or so.

“Local politicos” are local politicians.

“Immense powah” is immense power.

The “conference in Albany” was probably about some bus-transit funding issue, or safety issue.

RE: “The bus-drivers are always complaining the Union is selling them out......” —The bus-drivers are pretty much on-their-own all day, so always badmouth the union what little time they are together. They aren’t very union oriented, being on-their-own most times.

There are three regular monthly business meetings, on union-meeting day, interspersed throughout the day — one in the morning, one at 3 p.m., and one at night. I attend the one at night.

“Sanctimonious zealot” is my friend Dominick Zarcone (“zar-CONE”), a tub-thumping born-again Catholic Christian zealot. He began driving bus shortly after me, and is still driving. —He can be rather sanctimonious, but is otherwise okay; a good friend. (He reminds me of my father.) He was elected a Union Drivers’ Representative, acting as an attorney for bus-drivers in disputes with Transit management. He seems to accept my not being as holy as him.