This essay is republished from  I Stand. Will YOU?

Author’s Note: I miss Deke’s writing on Blogspot. It was so much easier than this platform. Now he’s gone and it’s up to me to (periodically) write the life of a Portland Bus Operator. But I’m not happy about it. It’s just something I need to do; for YOU, dear brothers and sisters.

It was a hopeful thought to imagine another picking up where Deke left off, but nobody did. Total silence did us all no good. We still have to deal with the insurmountable bullshit on the road while dealing with the fear that some over-zealous manager will wreak havoc upon our already-tumultuous life “out there”. Even though they’re not empathetic by doing what we do, day after day with little thanks other than words of intended-yet-seemingly-unfelt sincerity and monetary tokens of “support”, they have offered a collective ear. Now, it’s time for Patrick to have a say. I won’t do it often, because this forum takes me away from more creative endeavors. Still, I cannot remain quiet. Even though Deke died (in my forthcoming novel, if I could ever finish the fucker), his spirit implores me to keep writing truth to transit.

Okay. For the record, Portland transit management is making an attempt to listen to us. To me, anyway. I cannot speak for others who may have made an effort to be heard by the new regime. Sam Desue met with me last summer when I sent him a series of emails describing my views about our then (and still remaining) concerns about management. Gotta hand it to him, Sam made an attempt to be the guy who we have all been waiting for. He graciously gave me an hour of his valuable time. Then he spent 35 minutes talking about himself. Sorry Sam, but that was a mistake. I wanted you to hear US.

I wanted you to hear our pleas, but by the time you got around to me I was feeling a bit unimportant. Then, after you promised a followup to the concerns I expressed to you via emails and personal meeting, you delayed, then delegated me to your staff. At first I was insulted. Evidently, your meetings with civic leaders carried a heavier weight than dealing with a former blogger/author speaking up for the masses who roll the wheels, the “lug nuts of transit” (RIP, Thomas Dunn).

I felt denigrated, pushed aside. Although you promised to be more engaging and concerned with your front line that has been ignored for over a decade, you delegated that responsibility to people running the agency you were hired to oversee. Still, I retained a remnant of hope. So I continued expressing the frustrations WE feel in hopes some of it would strike home.

Last week, I met with the Directors of Transportation, and Bus Operations. Both have been exceedingly polite and attentive, especially after I blundered by totally missing our first scheduled meeting because like most of US, I didn’t check my company email more than once a month. I simply missed the invite. Even though I asked to be notified via phone about any upcoming meetings, I was still embarrassed to learn the invite came solely via agency email. My bad. When I arrived one very early afternoon at my road relief, I found an Extra Board Operator waiting to take over my route. I called the Station Agent who informed me I was scheduled to attend a meeting that was happening exactly then. Rushing back to the garage, I found these Directors graciously waiting my arrival. I apologized for missing the email invitation and wasting their time due to my failure to check my email on a weekly basis. They were kind and forgiving, but I was embarrassed. Luckily, they re-scheduled. That meeting took place this past week.

Fast forward to last week. Our re-scheduled meeting took place as promised. However, I felt it necessary to ask my union president for backup. Although our President and Vice President were scheduled to attend other meetings, they dispatched an Executive Board union rep to accompany me. Tim Maxcy, a wise and no bullshit/standup guy, stepped up on short notice to accompany me. I needed guidance, the wisdom of a union rep. I’m just a regular operator who happens to have fat fingers on a keyboard but cares deeply for those I roll wheels with. Not sure where our union leaders are regarding negotiations with management or what key points were part of their discussions, I assured President Block I did not want to muddy the waters. My only goals in this dalliance with the Directorship are to express my personal concerns gleaned over a decade of being screwed over. While the new regime seems willing to work with us, there remains a massive seed of doubt, given Sam’s sudden interest in those who run the government than those in control of the vehicles he is charged with protecting.

For a week prior to our meeting, I began writing my feelings and concerns. That’s how I roll. Given a prenatal brain injury, I have always been more comfortable writing than speaking aloud. (I also abhor confrontations, but that’s the reality of a transit worker advocate. STAND for what you believe, or sit down and STFU.)

Then I polled my fellow operators. I asked them to help me define “Operator Safety”. Of course, this devolved into a mis-mash of numerous (exceedingly relevant and pressing) complaints about our next-level management’s abhorrent treatment of operators. I was overwhelmed, yet not surprised, at the outpouring of my fellows’ intensely-negative feedback. The overwhelming response could be summarized by one unfailing statement: Assistant Managers view complaints, no matter how ridiculous, with more weight than the necessity of supporting an operator’s vital control of our own vehicle.

Many complained of unnecessary and outrageous disciplinary actions due to their very insistence passengers obey a seemingly nonexistent Passenger Code of Conduct. As if it no longer exists. We’re evidently supposed to bend over backwards while guiding a 20-ton vehicle while kissing the ass of fareless troublemakers, no matter how horribly they treat us. In the meeting it was stressed that some things should just be ignored, if only for our own “safety”. It’s an insanity I have lived, but to have it described in horrifying detail is more than I could bear. I wrote down many complaints, which I hoped to convey in this meeting.

The evening prior, I was aggressively menaced by a passenger who told me my polite PA plea to all four of my passengers to “please, while you’re on the bus, silence the audio/sounds on your phone. I appreciate it, thank you very much” was a “passively-aggressive insult” to him and that he didn’t “appreciate” my “bullshit”. As if my polite request was designed to punish him alone, even though the other three passengers were in compliance with this transit reality. Hey, I told him, I didn’t know, or care, who it was that I felt it necessary to remind of an obvious social indiscretion. It was a blanket plea to whoever it was causing the distraction. Passenger conversations are white noise; we can filter that out easily. The rest of our concentration is focused on common sounds of the bus, outside influences including sirens alerting of us of our lawful obligation to yield to emergency vehicles, and passenger conflicts. The distraction of some selfish individual’s phone audio is not conducive to an operator’s safe concentration to the task at hand.

Norm Abnorm stormed up to my space and verbally-assaulted me, even asked if I wanted to “punch” him. Dumbass Norm actually removed his mask, ignorant of his photographic vulnerability to the three cameras trained upon him. Instead, I vigorously invited him to get the fuck off my otherwise-peaceful bus. In a childish tantrum, he grabbed a handful of masks and tossed them to the wind as he exited. No problem I thought as I closed the door to his nastiness…. at least he was gone. Off and prancing in his infantile celebration that he had “showed me” who was “Boss”. I could only laugh as my hands shook in furiously-full-fledged Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (See: PTSD) which had prepared me to fight off a possible attack.

So prefacing this meeting, I launched into a definition of PTSD, a condition most bus operators deal with daily. My audience was visually sympathetic, yet the past decade’s experience with management nagged at me they didn’t care. Their words however, assured me they do care. Although physically removed from this reality, their faces registered not only shock but evident acceptance of my ordeal. (“They’re actually listening?” I asked myself). What I did not tell them was that less than a week earlier, supervisors met me downtown to deal with a mentally ill passenger who would not exit my bus after picking his bare feet of dead skin off the feet he said were “killing” him, leaving them and some biological ooze on the floor of my bus. He was also very verbally abusive, and two nights in a row caused extensive delays to my On Time Performance. This was made a top priority by the previous regime, above safety by all definitions.

By the time I arrived at our meeting, my PTSD was intensified by three nights of very intense incidents. Anyone who knows me would have recognized I was in full-stress mode. It was not conducive to a productive performance of an Operator trying to impress our collective concerns upon management. Still, given my failure to attend the last meeting, I was determined to deliver. Sleep-deprived after staying up two hours past my bedtime to prepare, not having eaten yet and barely jumping out of bed after two slaps of “Snooze” on my alarm in time to shower, dress and grab my essentials of operating before driving to the garage, I was woefully, physically unprepared for this grand opportunity. Oh, how I wanted to blast management for its still-inadequate efforts to assure us of their undying support!

Between their assurances of positive actions to our collective complaints, I felt they were too supportive and unbelieving of some Assistant Mangers’ abuse. Still, I had to voice the many concerns of those I asked to contribute. When these Directors showed reluctance to believe AM’s transgressions, I read some of the complaints I had heard. They were visibly dumbfounded, sometimes in stubborn disbelief. As if I had made them up. I chose the most horrible, feeling a bit testy at their shock.

One complaint in particular was a lady operator who left this job after she felt her sexual assault had been devalued by management, having been forced to drive the very route the assault took place upon. Her pleas were ignored, her mental health benefits elapsing before she could adequately deal with the terror she had experienced while in service to her community. She quit, and is now happily driving a big rig where her cargo does not talk back or assault her.

My early words of this meeting were devoted to my insistence that management adopt a true definition of “Operator Safety”. Here’s what I came up with, after reading the many complaints of my brothers and sisters:

“An environment in which an operator in the seat of a transit bus or light rail vehicle, or any Operations employee in the field; has a reasonable expectation of operating safely. It also ensures we are not pressured to work if we feel ill, which is unsafe for anyone on board or in the vicinity of our vehicles. Management at all levels should truly support us rather than resorting to unreasonable discipline. A “safe” environment also requires passengers obey basic rules of transit.” 

I asked for management’s support by insisting passengers be refreshed by the seemingly-forgotten “Code of Passenger Conduct”. My definition was met with a re-direction of the discussion. I felt my request was totally ignored. No offerings of edits or their own regarding a definition. At that point, I was devastated, and found myself briefly dropping out of the conversation. How could we address this issue if there is not a true definition of that being discussed?

Then, I was brought back to the room when the Director of Bus Operations informed us there is a new version of barriers being tested at all three garages over the next month which extend further than current models. Given Tim’s description and examples of the inadequacy of current barriers, this was a breath of fresh air. I expressed a desire to gauge the comfort level of these new models, of which each garage will have 10 buses equipped thusly. Current barriers offer protection from an assault coming from behind us, to which we are most vulnerable, but offer little protection from a full-frontal attack.

Over the past few months, Sam has offered several carrots on a stick to his front line employees. Get the vaccination, have the distinction of serving through the worst conditions during the past two years, get a few more days off. A $1,000 bonus (minus exorbitant taxes, of course) and $35 Fred Meyer’s gift card for the holidays were generally well-received. However, management needs to realize its tactics are suspect no matter what monetary carrots-on-a-stick are offered. There is still a major shakeup necessary to ease our collective anger and righteous indignation over this decade of constant abuse.

Many of our retirees suffer near-poverty conditions, especially the past decades without a bump in the promise they would feel the community’s collective thanks for their devotion to a union-led, 100+ year assurance that their service would be generously honored.

One moment that surprised both Tim and I was when these upper management Directors told us the union would have “an upper hand in the next contract negotiations”, given our operating the past two years through impossible conditions including pandemic, ice and snow storms, fire and smoke and the added stresses therein. This non-requested gem behooves us all to list our numerous desires on our union’s website to restore the many takeaways over the past several contracts. STAND AND BE HEARD!

Wow. This is a far cry from (former HR manager) Laird Cusack’s disgusting quote that “the only good employee is a scared one” and that “public sector employees should not have a pension”. It’s also refreshing after a GM who had not read the state’s audit of local transit before being granted the position after being fired from Vancouver BC’s transit system. Nor had he heard of Thomas Dunn’s murder. His reply to the former stark truth of our reality was reportedly “Hey, I’m from Canada you know”. As if Jubal Irvine Fraser’s murder didn’t happen in the very country from which he had just come from.

I was thrilled that our newest Director had to be reminded exactly who Laird was. It seemed his disastrous reign was being actively forgotten. Yippee! It was one of several good signs in a meeting I entered with grave reservations.

So. What did I take from this “follow up meeting with Sam”? There are still a myriad of problems management needs to address. What constitutes “Operator Safety”? How far does it extend? Powell Garage operators still (after more than a year) are forced to park their personal vehicles far from the garage and take a shuttle to their relief points while their cars are left to a “security force” which fails to prevent vandalism and theft. Layover points are often a nasty lair of homeless tents, rampant drug use and harassers of transit workers. Many bus routes fail to offer safe layover points and only provide porta-potties which are constantly broken into by the homeless, with operators constantly fearing for our safety.

Although enhanced barriers are great, what about when we have to leave the seat? It’s time the wussies of local government take a stand, with Sam the Man leading the charge. Clean up the garbage and needle-strewn trash heaps which litter our city streets. Our transit routes. If our local economy has any hope of recovery, with tourism making a comeback, and transit workers’ safety (and that of other municipal workers) finally becoming a priority in the Portland metro area, this city MUST proactively begin to dig out of this deep hole. If not, our economy will fail to rebound. Very few today venture into our once-vibrant downtown after two years of pandemic, riots and lack of leadership. There aren’t enough cops to enforce basic traffic laws, let alone respond to our constant pleas for support when things go awry on our rides.

It’s time to reclaim our once-celebrated city from the trash pit it has become.

So what? Operator Safety? Yeah, right. I’m more likely to be killed by some state-protected drug addict or violent protestor or transit thug than by my life’s negative health choices. I’m vulnerable to the dregs of society, and I do not feel management has any clue what Operator Safety is, let alone how to support such a non-defined state. However, I believe we’ll get there. We have seen the worst, fallen to our deepest of despair, and now only have to claw our way out. It’s possible, and I believe it can be done.

I cannot give up hope. I’m an optimist. I will continue to meet with management until I die, am fired for being too vocal, or whatever. It’s a stance EACH transit worker must emulate. Strength comes in numbers of those willing to be heard, not from those who sit on the sidelines and blather on social media. I delivered your concerns, now I urge you to take them to management yourselves.

It’s time to STAND, but something too many may feel overburdened to do. Hell, only 30% even voted in our last union election. This collective apathy is pathetic. I encourage ALL of you to make your voice heard. I can’t do it alone, nor can any of the few others. We have an opportunity to protect (and grow) the number of our neighbors who depend upon transit just to get to work and home, safely. YOU have not only the responsibility to rise in righteous indignation over working conditions, but also the moral obligation to do so. If not only for yourselves, but for those with whom you vigorously withstand the constant insults we daily endure. Actually talk to a management which currently is open to your doing so. Give it a whirl, I have. While it hasn’t exceeded my expectations, I’m encouraged they’re willing to at least listen. If they don’t hear your concerns in large numbers, what makes you think they’ll actually do something positive?

Seize this moment… we may never have such an opportunity again.

Yeah, management has a lot of work to do. At this moment in ATU757’s 100+ year history, we are faced with a golden opportunity to actually be heard. They finally admit they NEED us. US. You, your brother and sister. They still need to listen to those who came before as well. Meanwhile, stop bickering amongst ourselves. Voice your opinions, your concerns, fears and disgust to this new regime of management while they’re still listening.

It’s time to RISE. I have, and will continue. Will YOU?