Trimet taking the low road....again

AARON MESH of Willamette Week told the tale of Trimet's abuse of their power by sending out "press releases" that are nothing but pure propaganda espousing their point of view pretending to be 'facts'.

And now again we see Trimet playing the exact same game with its latest phony 'press release' regarding the current state of 'negotiations'.

Union Puzzled Over TriMet’s Latest Press Release

“We’ve presented TriMet with a health and welfare proposal and received a strangely mixed response,” says transit union president Bruce Hansen. He’s responding to TriMet’s threat to end negotiations unless the Union bargains health and welfare and wages over two days next week. The parties still have many more issues on the table, according to Hansen.

TriMet has been slow in providing necessary information. Documents it promised in September weren’t provided until January. Health insurance information was also slow in coming. “We didn’t receive accurate health insurance data until the second week in December, and even now, it’s incomplete. We had our experts analyze it and discovered that TriMet has been paying too much for it,” says Hansen. “If the employees intend to pay a portion of the costs, it only makes sense that we get a say in what is being bought.”

The Union proposed working collaboratively with TriMet in a joint trust. The trust would be charged with finding cost-saving approaches to providing health benefits. “And that’s where it gets really puzzling,” Hansen said. “TriMet’s general manager, Neil McFarlane, told two union officials that he’s interested in the idea of a collaborative, joint trust approach,” Hansen said, “Then, we get to the bargaining table and TriMet negotiator’s, Randy Stedman, states that TriMet will never agree to sharing control over the selection of health benefits.” Such joint trusts are common in the area.

When asked about TriMet’s demand that these two important subjects be resolved in the next few days, Hansen noted. “You have the Portland Teachers, the state workers, and any number of employees and employers taking weeks on these issues. He’s not being realistic. And, our joint trust proposal has not been given fair consideration.”

When the Union repeatedly asked for more bargaining dates, it got stonewalled. As late as December 27, 2014, Hansen was pointing out to Stedman that the number of bargaining dates Stedman offered didn’t  allow enough time for bargaining over all the proposals still remaining unaddressed. See attached letter.

Hansen questions certain statements made by TriMet. “You know, TriMet's press release told the media that the parties have bargained for 32 days. Yet Stedman himself knows that isn’t true. Most of those dates were used by TriMet to explain their four hundred plus contract changes. No bargaining took place. This is a fact that Stedman has previously admitted, in writing.” See attached letter.

The union president wants an agreement but is unhappy about TriMet’s various tactics. “I feared negotiations would deteriorate into a “he said, he said” situation because communication was so poor between management and the workforce. That’s why we tried to get public negotiations and TriMet refused. Then we offered to make confidential tape recordings of the sessions and TriMet refused. Now we’d really like to see the parties work together and reach an agreement and TriMet tells the press it’s rejecting that approach,” said Hansen. “At this point, the issue isn’t about money. It’s about what process will determine how workers’ and taxpayers’ money is spent.”

(click on pics for better view)