TOP TRIMET STORIES 2016

These are the top Trimet stories for 2016

The class action

THE CLASS ACTIONhas finally ended and supposedly we are all about to get paid a nice piece of change, $400-$800 per operator. It only  took 4 years 

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RANDY STEDMEN 

Randy Stedman’s Dirty tricks continue. This year he stopped allowing the union to MEET WITH NEW HIRES ON COMPANY TIME and also pulled the TRIMET REPRESENTATIVE  out of the retirees meeting. Stedmen also insisted that Trimet drives NOT GET SUFFICIENT BREAK TIME as part of his never ending war on Trimet transit workers.  In one of the great moments in Trimet history Randy received the SCROOGE OF THE YEAR award from Jobs with Justice! We know Mcfarlane’s board of sock puppets LOVE RANDY as they love KING NEIL HIMSELF

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JAY FRYE

JAY was fired after 22 years. TRIMET relishes its power to mess with people’s heads. They probably realized that Jay would have beaten their sorry ass in arbitration then they would have to give him all his back pay and hire him back. Rather than face that humiliation they let him go back to bus driving.  It was the biggest blog post of the year in terms of views 

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BEN SINGH

Popular driver BEN SINGH  died unexpectedly shocking those of us who knew him.

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We lost BILL WILMER this year.
 He was a tireless advocate for union employees.
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The Department of Labor ordered a NEW ELECTION for ATU757 president and vice president. That was basically BRUCE HANSENS LAST STAND and he ended up losing for the second time. The election ended with the SAME RESULTS however Chris Day almost unseated ATU757 icon Jonathan Hunt.

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Trimet blogger Erik Halstead took his complaint DIRECTLY TO THE TRIMET BOARD OF DIRECTORS and had one of the best appearances I’ve ever seen at those meetings

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Operators FREDERICK CASEY AND MIKE MCURRY spearheaded a drive to get assaults on operators turned into felonies rather than misdemeanors

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LANE JENSEN made a brief reappearance 

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There were TWO TRIMETGEDDONS this year, one where riders were stranded for 4 hours in a stuck  light rail vehicle

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Working for Trimet continues to be a HAZARDOUS OCCUPATION with driver assaults still breaking records.

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Tigard residents voted YES on Trimet light rail, by a bare majority of 150 votes. The yes side was BANK ROLLED by the people who stand to make some windfall profits from the project

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Another ATU757 icon decided to call it quits and went back to just being a plain old bus driver, JEFF ACKERSON. We had a falling out over the last election but Jeff was really a major character in keeping Trimet honest for all the years he was MERLO union rep. He was a fantastic rep.

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OPAL activists brought FEAR AND LOATHING to the gated community where Trimet executives hide away from their employees and the public

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Trimet attempted a back door MONEY GRAB using all of their contacts with Democrats to shove a tax increase down everyone’s throat. It was the republicans that saved the rest of us from that say what you will about Republicans.

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One of my pals STEVE COHEN wrapped up his career at Trimet with a musical number.

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Trimet also conducted a employee survey that 80% OF UNION EMPLOYEES DIDN'T FILL OUT in one of the most  EMBARASSING MOMENTS for Trimet executives