Recent
reporting on the ATU and TriMet ground rule meeting drives home the
need to have the meetings public. One respected media outlet reported
talks broke down because the Union insisted on having bloggers present.
Another respected media outlet quoted TriMet as saying “negotiations
cannot begin because the union insists all negotiated agreements will be
void if it wins the appeal.”
Neither
of the above statements are accurate. Attached to this email is the
last email exchange between the parties over the Union’s last position
in the meeting. As you can see, the Union was not insisting on bloggers
attending. Nor did it mention anything about “negotiated agreements.”
Bruce
Hansen, ATU president reported “This was the Union’s last ground rule
proposal and Stedman’s response. We didn’t see the attached email until
after we met but what happened is we entered the room and he exploded
and ended the meeting solely based on what he wrote in his email. There
was no discussion of anything else and as you can see, in an effort to
resolve at least one problem, the Union had narrowed its ground rule
proposals to just the admitting-the-press issue.”
With
TriMet wanting over 400 changes to the contract, it is clear that the
parties have many days of talking ahead of them. The Union is not
seeking retraction of any of the incorrect statements which it believes
were printed in good faith.
See attached: http://www.atu757.org/
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