RANTINGS OF A FORMER TRIMET BUS DRIVER

Sunday, October 26, 2014

News you won't get in the mainstream media

MAN ASSAULTED OTHER MAN ON MAX TRAIN http://t.co/k8YzoBrbIc http://t.co/hIpzZeObTi
— TriMet Scanner (@trimetscanner) October 27, 2014

ATU 757 MEMBERS dues down the drain

Below is the ad campaign that ATU757 members financed to the tune of $750,000 in a surcharge on their dues.
It all appears to have been in vain.
I sure would love to see an accounting of how that money got spent, to the penny.

#trimet MAX collision this morning in Hillsboro http://t.co/Ze5QHmObQe http://t.co/CTNbCWHq9i http://t.co/oFkxDQLNv8 http://t.co/YUo8Pv9irJ
— TriMet Scanner (@trimetscanner) October 26, 2014

BLAST FROM THE PAST

The mainstream media false propaganda war on Trimet union employees began here

Trimet has hired 300 NEW bus drivers in just the last year!

Trimet is expanding so fast you can hardly keep your eye on them. The expansion by the way was the true cause of the Trimet budget problems. Through the skillful use of propaganda techniques disseminated by the main stream media Trimet was able to convince the whole world (including most of its own union employees) that it was the employees that were causing Trimet financial problems.

Trimet 'official' publication declassified and sent to retirees. Employees were threatened with termination in the past if any of this information appeared on my blog. I guess they have had a change of hear. 33% of all Trimet bus drivers have been there for a year or less? That's incredible actually.

Trimet just can't be honest...about anything

Trimet light rail fragility

It's obvious that any sort of 'real' disaster would mean the end of the Trimet light rail

Thank you, councilmen and councilwomen, for allowing me the opportunity to address you on
the topic of Max travel safety. The Max train system serving our city and area is pretty
wonderful and is enjoyed greatly by many.

I need to discuss the terrible tragedy August 16th at the Gresham Central Max Station when
two people, one a wheel-chair bound woman, were killed by the Max train.
I was an eye-witness to this horrifying accident and was the first 911 caller.
It was a beautiful sunny Saturday morning and I was waiting on the south side of this train
station to pick-up a friend coming out to Gresham from Portland. When the train traveling cast
arrived at the station, I looked closely up and down the train cars for my friend's arrival. There
were few disembarking passengers and my friend had never made that train.

Trimet general manager Neil Mcfarlane is the biggest winner now that the contract is approved.
This is his 'crowning' achievement.

ATU 757 MEMBERS VOTE YES

It's rather astounding in many ways. Having watched many transit labor disputes around the country its somewhat surprising that Trimet union members would vote yes on cutting their own wages and benefits.

Reason #1- Bruce's union reps were able to politic among the workers for FOUR weeks campaigning that this contract be passed or else we die

Reason #2- There was no dissenting opinions allowed. The voting members were only allowed one side of the argument.

Reason #3- Half the people that are affected by this contract were not allowed to vote, that's the retirees.

That's our wonderful union at work

Driver who voted no remarks

(from one of the 18%)
The union steals our money and the company steals our benefits, lovely place to work

Majority of active Trimet union employees support this guy?

I already said they weren't the brightest bunch of folks


Union employees voted to give away their wages and benefits? Doesn't make sense to me, really. We'll see if that holds up in the next election which is coming up

I was a vocal Bruce Hansen supporter

This was one of the pictures I used during his campaign to support Bruce Hansen

There's more than a few people that are angry right now, including myself.

If the retirees had a say in this I am sure the outcome would have been much different.

There are supposedly 900 retirees right now, just slightly less than active employees. I have no idea what the demographic is of the retirees.

But in terms of dollars and cents I would wager that the retirees have put more congregate money into ATU757 than the active employees have.

It's grossly unfair that they were dragged down like this.

But the facts are that this was taken to a vote and the majority of the members said yes.

So although us of the 'vocal minority' are as MAD AS HELL Bruce apparently does represent the majority of the voting members.

So in a way you can't really blame Bruce for this, it wasn't shoved down members throats like throwing away the right to strike was.

It unfortunate that the retirees have to pay the most for this and they had no right to vote

And for that BRUCE has my eternal contempt.

He played the game that all politicians do, cater to the people that can put you in office and ignore the rest.

I was a huge supporter of Bruce by the way, my campaign video for Bruce was featured in this

WILLAMETTE WEEK ARTICLE

As far as I am concerned the campaign to get Bruce out begins now.

IS THIS A DRIVER ASSAULT?

WOMAN WALKS UP TO BUS AND BUS DRIVER AND HITS THE DRIVER IN THE ARM FROM OUTSIDE http://t.co/BRVlvyOeUS
— TriMet Scanner (@trimetscanner) October 25, 2014

TRIMET ORANGE LINE CLAIMS ITS FIRST VICTIM

BICYCLIST FALLS OVER ON MAX TRACKS http://t.co/o2zZidbfFA
— TriMet Scanner (@trimetscanner) October 25, 2014

Hansen's statement

Bruce Hansen, President of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757 (ATU) said the Union’s members have voted to ratify a new TriMet contract. ATU ballots were counted today; TriMet’s Board of Directors unanimously approved the agreement earlier this week. The four-year contract goes into effect immediately, its term being December 1, 2012 through November 30, 2016.

Readership up to 1500 views a day

May not be close to mainstream media but that's still pretty good considering we have no institutional support and plenty of detractors!

How hard would it be to rig the union vote?

The ballots are mailed to members, there are two envelopes, one to put the ballot and the other to put the envelope with the ballot.
Members are not required to sign or identify themselves on their ballot.
The ballots and envelopes themselves have no sort of coding!

So in other words, if someone had easy access to envelopes and ballots how hard would it be to 'rig' an election?

Too damn easy!

When you think about the voting and all the secrecy that surrounded and all the rules on the gag order and that people who voted against can't speak out it makes you wonder. It's like the fix was in and they want to make sure they silence the opponents to ensure a win

Thursday, October 23, 2014

And now for something completely different

Only on the bus!


Stedmen

Mcfarlane

After the mail is delivered to the union office tomorrow the votes will be counted!

If this contract is approved the two gentlemen above will be celebrating.

They will have achieved the victory that took them 5 years to to get!

Not sure how they finagled this since I wasn't part of the sphere of influence but they did it!
(I've always thought the company and the union were in collusion though)

As I said earlier, I have lots of contempt for these two men, but I respect their brilliance in pulling off this feat.

And just so everyone knows what's about to happen, these two men can claim they have saved over $50 million for the four year term of this contract.

That will translate into HEFTY RAISES OR BONUSES because this is how these executives end up getting these huge salaries.

Mcfarlane saved the company $50 million? His cut will be at least $100k bump in salary, mark my words.

And who knows how much Stedmen will walk away with but it will be something nice.

Not bad guys if I do say so myself!

MAX OF THE 'RED LINE' SAYS TRIMET RETIREES OUGHTA SUE

Tri-Met Board Approves A New Contract

And it looks as though they got what they were after: a complete re-do of health-care benefits for retirees.

It requires current and retired union members to pay a portion of their health care premiums and make co-payments for services.

Oh boy, this one's bound to head into the courts. I'm not going to argue about whether or not the health-care part of the deal was too generous; that's not the point. These dorks signed a contract, and nobody held a gun to their heads. People who worked for the development agency under the terms of that contract have every right to see it upheld.
Tri-Met can certainly alter the terms of the contract for existing employees, but they don't get to alter the terms for retirees. If I were one, I'd get together with others and file a class-action lawsuit against these six-figure Tri-Met "managers".

Class action update-part 5

Today was Ken Zatarains turn to take the stand and be deposed.

Zatarain pretty much stonewalled and played stupid during the questioning

He either answered " I don't know" or the Trimet lawyer objected to the questions and refused to let him answer.

As always these questions and answers are paraphrased

Bruce has not posted anything in writing as to why 'we' should vote yes on this!

This was given to the board members during the last meeting and it discusses what happens if union members reject this contract.

When you read this you can see that this is URGENT FOR TRIMET MANAGEMENT that this pass right now!

It also further shows that Trimet union employees have nothing to lose by rejecting this contract offer.

So why is Bruce and his henchmen so hot to get this passed?

And what about this 'block signup' shit that everybody hates?

Something really stinks here

Everybody that voted has done it already, too late to change anyone's mind.

We are still predicting this will pass, by my unofficial count the yea's have it. But there are more nays than I originally thought. Both the institutions (trimet/atu757) have been pushing this hard
This blog/facebook/twitter doesn't have anywhere near the reach of those two institutions

trimet.org/pdfs/meetings/board/10-22-14/Res_14-10-52.pdf

click for better viewing

Joe Rose's thinly veiled anti union contract story

It's not as bad as it could have been however the 'poll' he has attached to the story is definately has an 'anti union' bend.

As usual he ignored the toll this takes on retirees, can't get anybody in the mainstream to cover that.

Mainstream media is what it is, a mouthpiece for big business and government

TriMet contract: Compare your health care benefits to proposed plan for Portland bus drivers | OregonLive.com