Secrets of the City

Ah – would it help to report on why they voted the contract down? Or would that be too much work?

Yeah, let’s hear the details of the contract that 95% of the unionists found unsatisfactory.

Well, in a nutshell, it’s the usual- healthcare skyrockets, while wages don’t even come close to covering increases in cost of living. There’s a clause in the light rail part that doesn’t define what “emergency” means when letting management operate the trains.

I’m not too concerned about a strike yet. Between the State Fair and the RNC, I don’t think anyone’s too interested in losing the buses. Of course, it could give Gov. Smiley a chance to show his chums how big and bad he is…

Well, like what? What’s the hourly wage and how much is the monthly health insurance premium?

I really don’t know what I would do. It scares me. I’m so glad CJ doesn’t think it would be likely.

cjc is off to work with no computer, so I’ll do my best here.

They offered a 1% raise for each of the first two years and 2% for the third year. I’m not sure on the premiums and health insurance stuff. I think it is funny that MT is going around telling everyone that gas and everything is getting more expensive, so they have to raise fares, but then don’t acknowledge it when negotiating this contract.

And while cjc is pretty sure he won’t go on strike, I’m scared shitless. First, that’s one paycheck we won’t have. Second, that means I’ll need to drive to work everyday, which will be expensive. Third, we live a block from the garage, so I have a bad feeling that drivers will be using our house as a pit stop during picketing.

On the plus side, summer is a much nicer time to strike than winter/early spring like last time. And is much nicer on the screwed commuters.

Oh, and another thing to consider. After the last strike, MT ended up doing very well for themselves. It is really expensive to run all those buses and pay all those people.

So, you know how they are going to go in the red if they don’t raise fares, and possibly even if they do? Well, if they have a strike they can save a lot of money and maybe not have to raise them next year too.

I really just don’t trust the MetCouncil or Peter Bell much.

1-2% is not a raise when inflation is 4-5%. That’s losing ground. But bosses and the apologists for bosses could give a spit.

Employees who work essential services such as public transit shouldn’t be unionized. They wouldn’t need to be if we taxed the public the true cost of transit.

Collective bargaining should be a right for all workers, even middle management. Large employers are unlikely to treat workers well, unless there is some threat of collective action to make them behave.

We shited from discussing the likely fare increases for public transportation to potentially NO public transportation rather quickly, didn’t we?

They wouldn’t need to be if we taxed the public charged a fare that was the true cost of transit.

Large employers are unlikely to treat workers well, unless there is some threat of collective action to make them behave.

I wonder if Microsoft is a union shop. hmmmm.

let me know when all the highways have tolls that cover the trust cost of maintinence, dennis.

true cost
fucking mornings

We shited from discussing the likely fare increases for public transportation to potentially NO public transportation rather quickly, didn’t we?

We shited? That’s what stinks!

At over 20 cents tax on a gallon of gas, that’s about $200 a year, plus the sales tax on a new vehicle (that’s about $2,000), plus license tabs (about $100/yr) … I’d say we drivers are paying a fair amount for a strip of pavement that doesn’t so anything but lay there.

And yet, it still doesn’t come close to meeting the full cost maz.

what he said

a strip of pavement that has to be constantly repaired, and of course overpasses/retaining walls, lights, salting, etc. etc. etc.

sure the pavement sits there, but it costs a whole fucking lot more to make sure you can use it.

Constantly repaired? Look around you sometime next time you’re in someone’s car.

$300 a year from each driver *may* cover the cost of keeping the roads plowed over the winter. $63 Million at $300 each would be 210,000 drivers.

So, how do you pay for fixing potholes, powering street lights, street cleaning, resurfacing, reconfiguring, etc. etc. etc..? Have the bus riders pay for it?

heh, kevs!

Seeing where this thread is going, I think my unintentional choice of words was rather prophetic…

yeah you can thank your no-taxes boy for that, dennis. you’re already so undertaxed for the roads that they can’t even keep them in decent shape. imagine how much it would cost!

but with transit you can’t just stop paying for it. the buses just stop running, whereas the roads and bridges simply decay, so they’re easier to ignore.

also way to completely ignore the point, which is all you ever do. it’s not as simple as you paint it to be, I point that out, and you ignore that because it doesn’t fit with your worldview.

Maybe if the costs of repair and maintenance weren’t so artificially high due to the generous pay and benefits given to the 6-man crew filling a pothole.

Maybe if the costs of repair and maintenance weren’t so artificially high due to the generous pay and benefits given to the 6-man crew filling a pothole.

Yeah, because that’s all they do. You ever get tired of saying the same things over and over?

why don’t you go patch your own potholes then, dennis?
have fun with that.

but with transit you can’t just stop paying for it. the buses just stop running, whereas the roads and bridges simply decay, so they’re easier to ignore.

Yeah, that’s right. I guess they never buy new busses. The last one I was on when I took a shuttle to the fair about 10 years ago had bleeping plastic seats.

All this talk of a transit strike kinda makes my point about mass transit being a collectivist activity, though don’t it. No similar strike is forthcoming from auto drivers I would guess.

Yeah. Auto workers never go on strike, because cars aren’t collectivists. Only commies ride the bus. Or something.

Maybe that’s why the American auto makers are going under. In fact, I’m sure it is.

To the union bit:

Almost every non-mangerial employee in Minnesota is covered by a union. It is just how things are. I really like that I belong to a union.

More importantly, MT employees really need a union. Being a bus driver can be a really great job for the right person, but it is also full of suckiness:
-every driver starts as part time
-drivers’ schedules are horrible, especially in the first few years. buses run on weekends and holidays, so drivers need to work those.
-if a bus is late, it is really the driver who pays. they lose their break if they are late enough. usually they are under 5 minutes each trip
-bus drivers end up with a variety of medical issues such as higher instances of kidney failure, certain cancers, hemmoroids, and back and knee problems
-drivers have to deal with potentially dangerous situations on a daily basis, drivers do get assulted and drivers do get in accidents
-MT is known for their terrible management. They do things that I can’t believe, like firing drivers who hit people even though the cops and the witnesses all say there was nothing that could be done

These are the real reasons the drivers need a union. Plus the fact that they get screwed on pay and benefits.

dennis is the elitist here!
plastic seats are easier to clean nd maintain.

Maybe if the costs of repair and maintenance weren’t so artificially high due to the generous pay and benefits given to the 6-man crew filling a pothole.

There was some roadwork on Rice St. last week. They had an electronic arrow sign to indicate that you had to get over. Right next to it was a guy holding an arrow sign. Nice.

next time you’re stuck in traffic with thousands of your fellow drivers, try to tell me driving isn’t ‘collectivist’

“Almost every non-mangerial employee in Minnesota is covered by a union.”

Got any stats to back that up? Just curious.

yes, maybe if we throw out some anecdotes it will magically prove our point that buses are evil and roads are da bomb diggity!

what?

Not exactly kurtis, but almost all state employees who are not managers are covered by either MAPE or AFSCME. Hennepin County employees are AFSCEM as are Ramsey County employees. Those three organizations alone equal a large majority of government employees in Minnesota.

Maz, a single freeway interchange can cost a billion dollars. So you may think that when you cough up $100 for tabs and a few lousy cents on a gallon of gas that you’re covering that, but you’re not covering shit. That’s why gas taxes are in the dollars a gallon in Europe. Until car fanatics come to terms with the fact that transit is financed through tax dollars – and represents a huge chunk of the budget – there’s not a possibility of fair conversation on the topic. It’s disingenuous: there may be an argument for why the solution to every transit problem is to build more roads (although I doubt it) but “roads grow on trees” and “roads are the free market at work” ain’t it.

the federal highway program was probably the biggest piece of social engineering ever (well, at least in conjunction with the VA loan program)

During the last strike the strib reported that the MT bus driver pulls down a median $48k. And that was a couple years ago now. That doesn’t seem like a very low salary for blue collar work that doesn’t require a degree.

During the last strike the strib reported that the MT bus driver pulls down a median $48k

Ha, ha, ha, ha. Seriously? Median? Please provide a link, because if that is true, my husband is being screwed.

They start around $28,000/year and cap out around $47k or $48k a year, before overtime. It takes about 7 or 8 years to cap out. While some drivers make a ton in overtime, not all of them do.

Gas taxes are critical right now, reports Wachs, but in fact they’re covering only 35 percent of our governments’ cumulative spending on roadways, from big expressways to meandering country roads.

So much for the tired argument public transit depends on “subsidies,” and roads don’t!

—–

poke poke
oh that’s from 2003, btw. with inflation, gas taxes cover an even smaller portion of the costs now.

And yes it is Blue Collar work, but it is also a highly skilled workforce, much more than a normal blue colllar job. They put the lives of hundreds of people, daily, in their hands and drive half a million dollar machines. They should be compensated as such.

when people start bitching about paying people who do necessary and stressful jobs like 40-50k, I just roll my eyes.

if they made like 80 large, sure, let’s think about that. but seriously, anyone want to guess what the median household income in the state is?
anyone?

about $54k.
so if you want to tell me that teachers and bus drivers and postal workers don’t deserve to be middle class, fuck you. even if private industry shafts its workers left and right, we can at least expect government-related agencies to pay a decent wage for work no one else wants to do.

Right on Wayne. If God tells you to run for Senate today, I’ll vote for you.

All this talk of a transit strike kinda makes my point about mass transit being a collectivist activity, though don’t it.

Well, sure. When you’re just making up words and applying them to completed unrelated situations, anything can prove anything. This talk of a strike also proves my theory that mass transit is thrombosizes.

ps, in case everyone wasn’t already sure the world is going to hell thanks to free-market zombies like dennis:

Recession-Plagued Nation Demands New Bubble To Invest In
it’s funny and horrifying all at once because of how true it is.

Thanks, kc!
I might run for city council somewhere someday, actually.

That Onion article is brilliant.

agreed. I think we should put everything on a pay-for-true-cost basis. Highways, trains, buses, medical expenses, education. Oh, hell, why don’t we just disband the IRS and go back to a barter system. I’ll mow your lawn if you pull my tooth.

the onion article totally made my day,yeah.

geoff, does that mean we can disband the police and hire private militias?

yeeee-haww!

not “can” but “must”.

If everyone was just nice to each other and stopped exploiting people we wouldn’t need the police.

If everyone was just nice to each other and stopped exploiting people we wouldn’t need the police.

If we legalized marijuana, this whole issue would take care of itself.

Stay safe, stay second amendment!

seriously, pot is still illegal why?

Puritans really don’t want people to enjoy themselves.
This country was founded by ascetics who found joy in self denial.

oh ok.

good thing those values are applicable in our modern consumption-based society.

Maybe that’s why the American auto makers are going under. In fact, I’m sure it is.

Actually, it probably has far more to do with the fact that we insist on maintaining an employer based health care system, rather than a publicly funded universal coverage along the lines of the rest of the world. GM CEO once said that they weren’t in the auto business, they were in the insurance business. Health care costs add at least a couple thousand dollars to the cost of US cars.

In fact, that’s a big reason Toyota (?) chose Canada over the US for its new assembly plant.

well then again, GM has been trying to wiggle out of shit for years, so it’s really overdue for taking its licks now.

I mean that whole delphi thing where they spun it off and basically forced it to fail as a business so they could get out of pensions/benefits for the workers?
classy!

David is correct that increasingly more and more big corporate CEO are speaking out in favor of some sort of universal health care system — a big change from a group that is pretty conservative. They find it hard to compete in a global market when only US employers have to bear the largest costs for health insurance.

When the “tipping point” will come, no one is sure, but this topic has been debated since Roosevelt was in office. I mean Teddy, not FDR.

Oh lord.

I just say that oil is down $10/barrel. This conversation is now irrelevant, everyone get back into your cars.

David is correct that increasingly more and more big corporate CEO are speaking out in favor of some sort of universal health care system — a big change from a group that is pretty conservative.

These people aren’t “conservative.” They’d love to have the taxpayers pick up the cost of providing health insurance for their employees. Think of the increase in profit margins they could show to their shareholders with those costs off the books. But why should I pay for Bill Gate’s insurance costs? He’s making enough money to pay for it himself.

Fortune 500 CEOs are the biggest socialists in our society. They also welcome heavy regulation too because they can afford an army of lawyers and accoutants to deal with them better than their small-company competitors can. My “legal department” is my little sister.

blam.

that’s not socialism, that’s winning capitalism at it’s purest. sucks when you’re the little guy, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

and kevin, I hope that was a joke.

yeah, dennis, the system you love so much is purely responsible for that. once you’re big enough to push others around, you make them pay for your costs if you can, so you can maximize your profit. THAT is pretty conservative.

Nobody said anything about anyone being a conservative, dennis. You said the auto makers were failing because of the unions.

I responded simply by pointing out that they have to build costs into their product price that other manufacturers don’t have to include.

more and more big corporate CEO are speaking out in favor of some sort of universal health care system — a big change from a group that is pretty conservative.

and kevin, I hope that was a joke.

That’s what she said!

missed that. Fact remains, they’re still not socialists. The only definition of socialist I recognize requires one to wear Birkenstock sandals with heavy wool socks, and drive a 80’s vintage Yugo.

I would like it written into the contract that bus drivers have to turn on the AC more often. Like on 70-degree, humid mornings when the sunlight beats down through the window to create essentially a rolling greenhouse. No one likes to start their day sitting in a stew of the public sweat. No, I’m not talking about waking up next to teucer’s mom. I’m talking about the icky fog of sweat that hangs in the air above 50+ riders on mornings like this. Yuck. More AC, less sweaty stew.

I vote for less AC. As I’ve repeatedly stated in this forum.

want to come grocery shopping with me, jane?

the system you love so much is purely responsible for that.

You don’t love capitalism. Wayne?

Or do you have alternative?

Grocery stores, shopping malls, busses. Stupid over AC.

The buses do seem to have an issue with temp regulation. It’s rarely just right. Usually much too hot or much too cold.

I’m not talking about waking up next to teucer’s mom

that makes one of us.

Yeah, it’s hard to regulate the bus temperature. Most of the buses have a 68-74 degree thermostat, but I’m not sure how well a lot of them work. I know that the temp in the driver’s area is often not anything like the temp in the rest of the bus, so your driver may not have a good idea what it feels like where you are. In my ideal world, you could ask the driver to turn the hot or cold up or down and you’d get a pleasant response. In the real world, you may get met with, “Policy says we turn on the AC at 80 degrees,” which is true. You’re meeting resistance because the AC saps the power (though I’ve noticed that the hybrids are immune).

I like it cool and dry and I turn on the AC when it’s warm and humid if I’m uncomfortable.

Unfortunately, all it really boils down to is that you can’t please everyone, and Kwatt and Jane will just have to battle to the owie if they ever both get on my bus at the same time. But I’d be on Kwatt’s side, which, you know, doesn’t really happen very often…

All right kwatt, you’ve won this round.

Air conditioning FTW!!! (o) (o)

The hybrid bus had great AC tonight. But b/c it’s so much smaller (or at least it feels like there’s less room) everyone was cramped together and that made it warm. They can’t use those things on routes that are already SRO with a regular bus.

I agree. The space issue on the low-floor buses is pretty bad. That’s all MT is buying now, so all I can think is that they’ll have to put more buses out there. Huh. And ha.

it’s not just MT, that’s all most transit agencies are buying anymore because of ADA compliance