“TriMet’s new budget proposal reveals a disturbing trend,” says Amalgamated Transit
Union 757 president, Bruce Hansen. “It contains evidence of an
ever-increasing income gap between the wages of top managers and the
wages of every other TriMet employee.” Hansen says the bonuses that top
managers have given themselves just this year are a clear example of
that widening gap.
“We
looked at what was budgeted for each position and then listed those who
received bonuses that exceeded the budgeted amount. What we discovered
is disturbing. There are over 300 non-union employees. According to the
budget, bonuses were awarded to just 35 people:
I. There were 9 lower level supervisors given bonuses in amounts ranging from $502 to $2,012
II. 11 engineers and senior technical employees received bonuses in amounts ranging from $1,160 to $11,564
III. 15 high-level managers were given bonuses in amounts ranging from $2,012 to $16,827
“Not
one clerical or low wage, non-union employee got a bonus. Instead, for
the most part, the bonuses went to the ‘already-fat-cats’.” This
increasing inequality has become the new ‘normal’ at TriMet.”
Particularly
disturbing to Hansen is the fact that the biggest bonus, $16,827, went
to the Executive Director of Labor Relations, Randy Stedman. “His
immediate department has just nine people, two of whom gross less than
$30,000 a year. Yet, those eight other people got nothing while Mr.
Stedman received TriMet’s largest bonus of $16,827. I just don’t
understand the reasoning here.”
“I
have been sitting across the bargaining table listening to a guy who
just got a single bonus that is larger than many of our retirees’ total
annual pension,” says Hansen. “Yet, this same man insists that those
retirees should pay twice what they are paying today for their health
care!”
Hansen
further notes that Stedman, who will be paid over $192,000 this year,
seems to be either totally oblivious or uncaring about how hard TriMet’s
proposal will hit the retirees. “Remember, these people worked years
for TriMet, looking toward that day when TriMet’s retirement promises
would be fulfilled. They had no way of knowing that TriMet management
wasn’t saving to meet that obligation. Why should these retirees bear
the total burden of management’s unconscionable lack of commonsense
foresight? Especially when those same managers are free with taxpayers’
money when it comes to raising their own income?”
Hansen
says the Union is discovering that TriMet management’s financial
numbers are manipulated, misleading and seriously inflated. “The Union
has repeatedly stated our willingness to sit down and work together with
TriMet to solve the genuine problems that exist. Unfortunately, our
offer keeps getting stonewalled, pure and simple,” says Hansen.
TriMet’s Board meeting included yet another plea from the transit union president that the workforce be allowed to partner with the Board in solving TriMet’s alleged financial woes.
“One
enormous hurdle we can’t get over is the fact that TriMet management
won’t give us adequate information that we can use to verify their claim
of financial problems,” says Bruce Hansen, president of ATU 757. “We
see TriMet spending millions in ways we think are imprudent. And we
suspect they use deliberately inflated numbers to support their claim of
financial stress. The problem is, we don’t know and can’t know, until
we can really look at the books and talk to the people coming up with
those numbers.” Hansen says the Union needs accurate numbers in order to
determine the most effective way to lessen TriMet’s financial problems
while protecting the workforce and retirees.
Alluding
to the Secretary of State’s recent, devastating audit of TriMet
management’s communication problems, Hansen told the Board that the
problem was more than an inability to communicate with the workforce.
“Before you can have communication, you have to have trust. That trust
has been broken.”
Board
President Bruce Warner referenced a letter from Hansen that points out
the problems with TriMet management’s claims regarding retiree’s health
insurance. Warner stated the Board is committed to seeing that the Union
gets the requested information and that it becomes a partner in finding
solutions.
“We
very much appreciate the Board’s stated intentions,” Hansen said in
response, “but that is not the reality I am seeing.” Hansen later noted
that the Board stated the same intention last December and nothing
changed. “I think the Board members have good intentions but it appears
that no one is listening to them either.”
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