agent pombero

TriMet execs received big pay increases, even as transit agency increased fares, cut routes

Neil McFarlane is complaining that the unions are making Trimet broke...really McFarlane? You were caught red handed. You are a pathetic parasite.
Another reason for Portlanders to buy a bike and ditch Trimet for good

I-Like-To-Bike

More bus transportation in the News from Slate, a favorite source for some LCFers.

https://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/201...transfers.html

Roody

I know the previous two posts have some kind of relevance, but I can't figure out what it is.

Dahon.Steve

Quite sad. We are seeing record numbers of people taking public transit than ever before. In addtion, there were transit cuts in every state and it continues to this day. I highly doubt these executives are the only ones who can do this job. There should be a cap on salary and it should no way reach 200K a year. I'm sure there are tons of experienced professionals that would do that job for less than half that!

wolfchild

Get rid of the unions and privatize public transit. Unions are a bunch of greedy vultures that will bleed dry any business or company once they get a hold of it.

Ekdog

Heads should roll. We need efficiently run mass transit.

"A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It’s where the rich use public transportation.” —Enrique Peñalosa

Ekdog

Politicking.

wolfchild

The relevence is that public transit is part of LCF lifestyle... Nothing wrong in discussing public transit and some of it's problems.

wolfchild

I really believe that getting rid of unions would help our public transit system save a lot of money and run more effeciently.

Ekdog

I think differently about unions, but is this the place to get into a debate about it?

no1mad 

Nope. That would be P & R.

wolfchild

No problem.... Sorry I didn't mean to get off topic and get political...Since the topic was "financial woes" and "public transit ", I just thought I'd mention it.. I am done.

I-Like-To-Bike

Apparently discussion of public transit is wrong or irrelevant if the discussion is not limited to singing its praise.

Roody

I have no interest, but I certainly defend your right to talk about any stuff you want to.

Artkansas 

According to the article, it's management that's full of the greedy vultures. That's why we need checks and balances. Unions and management serve as checks and balances to each other in theory.

Artkansas 

Riiiiiiiiiiiight. https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...riding-the-bus

Roody

Anti-car statements are verboten by BF management, but we all love a rousing anti-bus thread.

I-Like-To-Bike

I was looking for that thread to post the Slate article but couldn't find it, Thanks.

As far as which topics are "wrong" or "irrelevant" for this list, that opinion is usually posted by Roody, while the decisions are made by the moderators.

Smallwheels

So a bunch of paper pushing deal making executives who sit in neat offices and have expensive lunches while doing political deals should earn $200,000 per year, and the bus drivers who are rolling at 5:00 A. M. in all types of weather dealing with crazy drivers; drunks, criminals, stinky people, fights, angry people, and overall nasty situations, should just earn $10 per hour with no benefits right? That's the way it would be without unions. Driving a huge vehicle requires plenty of mental focus. Doing it for hours at a time is very taxing. Try it some time. It is probably more stressful than being a desk jockey. Who would do that job for minimum wage without benefits?

Wolfchild you need to rethink your perspective. A long time ago I was anti-union because I believed the market place would give people enough job choices. It turns out that there aren't so many job choices or alternatives. These days you can be a wage slave or just die on the streets. College graduates can't get jobs these days. What do you think it is like for a moderately skilled worker or unskilled worker? I was wrong about the purpose of unions. They're more needed now than in the last thirty years since NAFTA.

Germany is the most prosperous nation in Europe. Almost everybody there is in a union and the individuals seem to be doing well. Germany alone is holding the EU together financially.

It is sad that a public transit system is killing itself under the guise of saving itself. Cutting hours of service makes it more difficult for more people to ride. A huge advertising campaign touting the benefits of public transit would put more money in their pockets in the long run. If they kept the buses clean and added security guards on some routes they would make public transit more enticing.

Roody

Some of our unionized bus drivers made more than $100,000 last year. Boy were people upset about that! It's a lot more than the mayor makes, but they sure worked hard for it.

https://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/13953

zeppinger

If the bus drivers were not unionized then they would likely make so little money and receive so few benefits that they would be working full time but still on public assistance like so many wal-mart workers. So all you are really saying is that you want to pay less for mass transit in the form of ticket prices and more in the form of taxes to pay for government support of low income people. I bet that is not what you mean though. It sounds more like you want to slash in both departments....

KD5NRH

Really? My company is having trouble finding people who actually want jobs badly enough. Our fabrication crews are making around $200/day/man on average, and we keep having to drop them because they refuse to clean up and be presentable when they're at a customer's site. $50k+ per year for nearly anybody who can weld and pull a 30' flatbed trailer, (and we've even provided the truck sometimes) and it's not worth a shower and shave every morning, haircut once a month and a pair of Dickies work pants (we provide the shirts, and in one case the boss took the guy to a barber and bought him two pairs of pants) rather than jeans with holes in them. The ones who have stuck with it all say it's not hard work relative to other onsite fabrication jobs, and great pay for the amount of work they're doing.

When I was doing interviews for some office jobs at a previous employer, we had a ridiculous number of people who would show up at the nice office building in shorts and a t-shirt, hair uncombed, with facial jewelry. Not just kids who wouldn't know any better, but a lot of college grads. These people just don't want the job enough to work for it.

zeppinger

50k isn't all that much money for skilled labor.

wolfchild

I have never been a desk jockey or paper pusher. I am a skilled labourer I work in steel fabricating and painting industry. The reason I was critical of labour unions is because of what they have done to the company that I work at. Our company was a lot more productive and a lot more prospeorus before the union came in. I was getting bigger raises before the union then after the union took over. Before the union came in my boss would only give raises to a few select individuals who really deserved it. Now instead of few individuals who really deserve a big raise everybody is getting a much smaller raises. Yes even lazy unproductive people who don't deserve it are getting it . Everybody has to be treated equally, which is socialism at it's best. Don't even get me started on all the petty little griviences that we had to deal with which cost us thousands and thousands of dollars.

Not all Germans are pro union. My boss is a German immigrant who came to Canada from Germany long time ago. He absoluty hates labour unions. He is 70 years old and still putting up a big fight and running his business. He won't allow labour unions to intimidate him. We just got rid of a few useless individuals in our company a couple of months ago and hired some new people. Company is now slowly on it's way up again.

Smallwheels

I read that story and it is very similar to one that happened in New York with police officers. I wish I could work just eight hours a day as a driver in my town.

The guy mentioned in the story worked on average 42 extra hours every week of the year! It would take an unusual circumstance to get almost anybody to do that much work every week of the year. Maybe he hated his home life. That doesn't seem like a way to live. How can anybody work eighty-two hours a week for a whole year?

The crux of that situation is that the government entity or corporate entity refuses to hire enough workers to fill the hours that are available. They do this to save on insurance and pension costs. That's not really a union decision. It's a management decision.

As far as people not being willing to be neat in their appearance for a high paying fabrication job, do better advertising for workers. Welding is a nasty poisonous business. Maybe breathing in all of those toxic fumes has altered their perception of how a work environment should be. One of my coworkers ran a landscaping business. The toxic fertilizers and herbicides nearly killed him over the years. Now he can't do that type of work. He stands around and his body shakes and his voice warbles a bit. All of it due to the toxic chemical exposure from things that the government says are safe for our lawns and gardens.