"Richest benefit package in the world'

By Bruce Peek

Hype from a viscious management regurgitated by the corporate mainstream media

It introduces the whole subject
of telling the truth about what claims and counterclaims management
has been making about our pay and benefits for the last three years.

But, and this is important I have not been successful in getting
Bruce Hansen and the ATU to follow up on the un-truth of managements
claims that our benefits are the ," most lucrative in the
transportation industry."

It's as if management is saying that our
operators have better benefits than Barack Obama and make more money
than Mitt Romney.

The truth of course is that while Seattle metro Bus
drivers make $30.21 per hour we make $26.76 per hour. That is a
difference in pay of 13.89 percent. The predictable reply of course
will be that well Seattle has a higher cost of living than Portland.

Well our reply should be while it is no doubt true that housing in
Seattle's posh Queen Anne neighborhood is perhaps more expensive than
trailer court rents in Felony Flats off of southeast 82nd in Portland,
Portland is the #3 real estate market in the nation and Seattle is
number 2.

The differences between Seattle and Portland while they do
exist certainly don't total 14% more costly for Seattle.