Tri-Met union takes case to public
There's an interesting ad on this page of this week's Asian Reporter:
TRI-MET'S DYSFUNCTION PUTS SAFETY AT RISK... TRI-MET'S DYSFUNCTION PUTS SERVICE QUALITY AT RISK... TRIMET'S DYSFUNCTION PUTS PUBLIC FUNDS AT RISK... TRIMET'S DYSFUNCTION PUTS WORKER'S HEALTH AT RISK....
Our favorite passage:
It's not just spending millions on new furniture, it's also signing what the Portland Business Journal calls "the biggest office lease of the year." It's spending nearly $2 million dollars giving new buses a “nose job” so they'll look like trains. It's having 161 managers being paid a base wage of over $75,000 a year, 55 of whom get over $100,000. This is to supervise a schedule-driven transit system service that can essentially run itself.
We hope there'll be more of these ads taken out where more people can read them. While we have no sympathy for the fat and sassy bus drivers, they do speak the truth most of the time.
| Posted at 7:48 AM | Permalink |
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Comments (8)
An internally sourced operation like UO Matters would be a great service.
I would have to be operaed by retired riMe folks of course. Anybody actually employed by TRI MET would face serious retaliation from management. and probably the Union, too. UNION, OO.
While a TriMet Matters, jus like UO Matters, would have its own personal economic / financial / political axes to grind, it would open up a much needed window on the internal TriMet administration's shenanigans.
Posted by Nonny Mouse | February 9, 2013 10:01 AM
Hire some ad space on a few busses.... ;')
Posted by tankfixer | February 9, 2013 12:24 PM
Now tell us how many bus drivers make over $75,000/yr and how many make over $100,000?
Thanks
JK
Posted by jim karlock | February 9, 2013 1:32 PM
I wonder why this ad is placed in the Asian Reporter.
Posted by Pom Mom of LO | February 9, 2013 1:42 PM
JK, the drivers that make over $75K and $100K per year make those wages due to overtime, not because it is their base salary.
The top operator rate as of 12/1/2012 is $26.76/hr. This is equivalent to $55,660.80/year in "base salary". An operator that works as little as 9 hours of overtime each week is just out of reach of the $75k mark. It takes almost 22 hours of overtime - each and every week - to reach the $100k mark.
Even with the recent changes being implemented to hours of service, both are still attainable, by the operators that care to subject themselves to that abuse.
Posted by Not JK | February 9, 2013 1:49 PM
Pom Mom: It's not just the Asian Reporter. I saw the same ad in, I think, the Willamette Week (could have been the Mercury, I can't exactly recall).
Posted by Vinylation | February 9, 2013 2:18 PM
SE Examiner also published this.
Posted by 39er | February 9, 2013 2:25 PM
I was gagging this morning as I read the Oregonian patting itself on the back for being the moving force that caused TriMet to clean up its act re. egregious overtime for drivers.
It's Iran Contra all over again. If TriMet management says it had no idea this was going on, it's incompetent. If it knew and did nothing, it's criminally negligent.
There's no way in the world I believe they didn't know what was going on. After all, they were paying out the salaries.
Posted by NW Portlander | February 9, 2013 6:24 PM