DON ILER BREAKS DOWN THE 'OPERATOR SHORTAGE'

Another fine thread by current operator Don Iler this time on the "operator shortage"

 Glad that

@portlandmercury

got TriMet to admit publicly what anyone dependent on transit in this city knows and what anyone who works in operations at TriMet has known for months, the operator shortage is bad and won’t get better for a LONG TIME. ARTICLE HERE

Trips are getting cancelled every day on the bus side, every shift for operators includes requests to work overtime to cover runs, every day off I get a call asking me to work my day off.

We have several HUNDRED fewer bus operators than we did before the pandemic. A friend at rail told me that rail is short 50 max operators. The current max schedule especially has no relation to reality vis-a-vis staffing levels as anyone who tried to catch a MAX recently knows.

How did TriMet get in this pickle? A few factors. Partly it’s demographics, when I started here a few years ago, my trainer said 2/3rds of the operators could retire right now if they wanted. The past two years a lot have retired, a trend that will continue.

TriMet also worked hard at cutting the benefits that used to make driving a bus a good job in this town. The past 10 years they eliminated pensions, paying all health insurance premiums, retiree health benefits, and more. All while handing out bonuses to executives.

Wages also have not kept pace with inflation or the insane cost of housing in Portland. The high cost of housing I’m guessing has also priced out workers who potentially would have held this job.

Morale was low at TriMet even before the pandemic, but bus operators, like flight attendants and others, have become society’s punching bag the past two years. The aggressive and unruly behavior has been constant along with just the plain rudeness and entitlement.

TriMet is also now paying for the hiring freezes of the past. For several years during the worst of the recession, and for the first year of the pandemic, TriMet hired no new operators. So 5 of the last 13 years. Demographically not good for a large organization.

So yeah, not the best situation and all these factors have created a severe shortage and created the worst service levels in recent memory. It’s a shitstorm that will take YEARS to fix.

Years you say? Why years? Why aren’t these hiring bonuses working overnight? Here’s why:

Let’s say TriMet is meeting all recruitment goals, and is able to start a new training class every three weeks with 25 trainees. About 5 of those trainees won’t finish training. 5 will leave or get fired during their first 6 months. Another 10 will leave their first 3 years.

Meanwhile, retirements continue and operators continue to leave. All of us have friends now working elsewhere who have better hours, and about the same pay but who also aren’t dealing with the problems now facing bus drivers daily.

Sure, the inability to get new drivers in the seat is part of the problem, the other is the exodus of current drivers. The new drivers are just a small band aid on a problem that will continue to fester.

And then there is MAX. Rail operators are promoted bus drivers with six months behind them and require 13 weeks of training. So even if someone starts at TriMet Monday and all they want to do is ding ding through town, it will be until April 2022 before they operate a train

How to fix this problem? A few ideas. Make this job so lucrative that it’s competitive to get. Bring back the pension, pay all health care premiums, restore retiree health benefits.

Also TriMet needs to increase the pay of long serving operators today in order to stem the exodus. More money might convince people to stick around longer. Offer retention bonuses to everyone, offer those nearing retirement cash to stay longer until more can get trained.

TriMet needs to act soon. As fuel prices soar, people will turn to transit and TriMet could be part of the solution. Otherwise it will lose a big opportunity to get more people on the bus.