For the life of me I cannot understand why the public doesn’t see why the city blames the source of overtime is caused by the method in which the drivers pick their work. Management makes up the schedules and the shifts. There are 8 and 10 hour shifts that have 25 or more minutes of overtime built right into the shifts. There are 168 shifts that have as much as an hour of overtime built right into them. A good number of these shifts are on the Sunday schedule. So as you can see the drivers are not responsible for the way in which the schedules and the shifts are made up. I have not included the shifts that have anywhere from 5 mins to 25 mins, and there are a good many of these shifts as well. So come on people, open your eyes and see just what the city is trying to get you to see. Binding arbitration is the way to go. Let’s get the buses back on the road. —Bus Operator
This article appears in Feb 16-22, 2012.
I wish you finished your schooling so you could put together a sentence that actually made sense.
I don’t agree that overtime should be built into a shift, if that is the point you are trying to make.
Perhaps you should just shut up, and vote no next time you are asked to strike, lest they fire you and you end up back at Macdonalds.
Then why is the union fighting so hard to keep this method of scheduling?
Oh, I understand now. And when the strikers yell “SCAB” at the managers driving the Access-A-Busses they’re actually reminding them to take care to not inadvertently cause pain or injury to any passengers who might have delicate skin lesions as a result of their disabilty. Once again, the Union makes customer comfort and safety Priority One.
And we’re just sooooooooooo grateful.
“I found this tedious to read”
– Love Donk
Beats being called “illiterate”.
You guys thought you would make everyone cry “Umcle!”, but we’re making do without you.
Next time vote “No” to strike.
Wp
And p.s.: yelling “Scab!” at the guys who are driving the Access A Buses, after holding them up is a really classy move.
How’s strike pay doing, mortgage-wise?
I see your still trying to justify your stupid decision to go on strike. You’ll need that “built in overtime” to try to recover the wages you lost due to the poor decision you made.
Sorry, no sympathy for the devil here.
All I can hope is that the longer the strike continues, less and less is offered to these spoiled, overpaid, underskilled bus drivers.
Start saving that $150/week and learn to budget on it, with the current opinion the city and it’s residents have of MT, this could take a while.
The jig is up kids.
Wow, just incredible the amount of people who can read something but are completely incapable of understanding what they read.
Drivers want to keep being able to pick a shift for 3 month periods.
Drivers HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO CONTROL OF HOW SHIFTS ARE SET UP.
That is the job of NONUNION managers.
So nonunion managers create shifts with overtime in them & you bozo’s are telling me if you had the chance to work & get paid a few dollars more you wouldn’t take it !?! BULLSHIT you’re all liars, & you may be able to fool yourself & other brainiacs like yourselves. You sure can’t fool me.
BUT that still doesn’t change MANAGEMENT MAKES THE SHIFTS SCHEDULE.
DRIVERS PICK A SHIFT & THEN WORK THE SCHEDUAL AS IT IS POSTED BY MANAGEMENT.( & here is where I point out much higher paid managers who are causing some of this overtime problem)
IF there is too much overtime costing us taxpayers too much money….ITS THE MANAGERS FAULT NOT THE DRIVERS.
Place blame where it belongs
More – a misguided defence of the contract. For a minute I thought you were advocating the deletion of the ‘Scheduling’ section of the contract.
The union is losing big time. Passengers making $10 – $15 an hour are mighty pissed at Wilson and the drivers.
You know something OP? The more i talk to drivers and supervisors, (and i know a few and have talked to more online) the more i get the sense that something fishy is going on here.
There is a story (the one you appear to support) that says drivers were 93% (93 or 97..? whatever) in favour of striking. Yet 100% of the drivers i’ve spoken to claim to have voted against a strike. Now.. if 93% of drivers voted to strike and I have spoken to 10 drivers over the last few weeks, it seems like a pretty weird coincidence that every one of those 10 claimed to have voted no strike. It’s possible of course.. But highly unlikely. It would mean that somehow i have managed to communicate exclusively with the entire “no strike” minority.
You know what I think OP? I think this is a cloaked lockout perpetrated by HRM as a desperate effort to raise money at the last fucking second to squirrel away in an account destined to fund our auspicious shipbuilding future. Getting ready to welcome all those out of towners.
Or whatever.. insert dumb conspiracy theory here if you don’t like that one. But one thing i do know. Something’s going on here….. something stupid.
http://crayfisher.files.wordpress.com/2011…
Hey More, I find it amusing that you defend the union, only because you are/were in a union. By your assertion, nothing should change, and anyone who thinks there is a better way of doing things is an idiot. Another thing, managers get payed more because they are in charge. Who in their right mind would take on the responsibility of management if they got paid less than the workers? I know I wouldn’t!!! So if the bus drivers on average make 50,000 a year (which is a low average in my opinion, more like a base guaranteed salary 24×40=960×52=49,920 with no overtime involved), what should the managers make? The unions overtime is only serving one purpose, driving the wages of the managers up. I’m not saying that they shouldn’t get a raise, a raise is perfectly acceptable, my problem is that the union is preventing the managers from doing their job by not allowing them to make necessary changes to streamline their system of delivery. If overtime is built into the system, then the people who work it deserve it, I’m not disputing that, but unnecessary overtime caused by drivers being able to cherry pick their shifts is being phased out. This is a battle they aren’t going to win, cutbacks are across the board, no government funded organization is immune. Striking to preserve a wasteful system is just plain arrogant, and the public opinion pole is rock solid on this one. No matter how Ken Wilson wants to spin it the public isn’t buying it, and at the end of this, he will be nobodys hero!!!!!
To the bus drivers, I say “go back to work, fire your union president and stop wasting everyones time, you’re only hurting yourselves financially”
SHITD, there is another society on this planet, where if there are cuts to be made…those at the top see cuts before the lower paid workers do.
The place is Japan.
IMO that mentality is what we need here.
IF managers are incapable of creating shifts without built in overtime, they should take the cuts before drivers & mechanics do.
Not that mechanics & drivers shouldn’t see a cut as well, if there is no other way to stay within the budget. I understand that & believe everyone in every level of Government should be mandated by law to HAVE to stay inside the budgets. Just in all fairness… if your going to cut costs, IMO they should start at the top & work its way down. Because someone making 10 bucks an hour can’t afford to take much of a cut, especially when compared to someone ,like an employee making 30, 40 ,50 + or more dollars an hour aka mangers & CEO’s
Plus if its your job to make up scheduals, & you can’t do it without overtime, you are incapable of doing your job….& I should know, I make up scheduals for my job sites & if I have a job that is going to take 5 guy’s about 40 hours to do so & I only have 2 days to do it….1 of 2 things has to happen….I need more people to pull it off or I need overtime for the 5 guy’s to get the job done…it isn’t rocket surgery.
I’ve been doing what I do for 30 years now, & there are many variables that have to be looked at. But no matter how you slice it what 5 guy’s can do in 40 hours (8 hours of work a day no OT) cannot be cut down to 5 guy’s doing it in 16hrs (8 hours a day no OT) & the job get done !
Even if we put in 16 hour days over 2 days we will not only come up short, as workers tire & In my experience after 12 hours your guy’s are at 50% of when they are rested !
I would still need at least 2 more guy’s, & for safety sake I would rather doubling the crew would be better & just a couple of hours of overtime for all & no one have to work 16 hour days !
will someone, anyone just take the 2 fucking sides, lock them in a windowless, bathroom less room, and give them as much coffee from tims as they can drink. and not let them out til they reach a deal. is it that fucking hard to say let’s drop this bullshit for once and all? come on guys, grow the fuck up, or look for a new job, away from the public sector.
More is right. Stephen is wrong.
L O L….Life Sucks I like the way your thinking ~:)
“If overtime is built into the system, then the people who work it deserve it, I’m not disputing that, but unnecessary overtime caused by drivers being able to cherry pick their shifts is being phased out”
Next time “read” my post, More, not just skim it.
I’m not disputing the fact that management is to big, and overpaid. I’m also not disputing the fact that they should take a haircut in the salary department, but the strike is not about that. The MT union was offered a 9% raise over three years (which would have put them at a base salary at the end of 3 years of 54,548/year, and they would be then negotiating a new contract for more, which I have no problem with) and they turned it down flat because of scheduling issues. Really stupid move. As the bitch states (read it again), the shifts have overtime built into them, If that’s the case, so be it, good on the driver that works it, I have no problem with that. That’s not the issue, it’s senior drivers picking blocks of shifts, and finishing their work week in 3.5 days and having 12 of their 40 hours being paid in overtime. We’re all intelligent people here, fucking a system is not a right, and people have had enough. Bus drivers provide a service we need, and in my opinion, are paid well for doing it. Nobody is working 100 hours a week for slave wages in sub standard equipment, they got offered fair deal, and turned it down. This is not an issue of management-vs-worker, that’s a tired old union trick, kind of like a magicians slight of hand.
I like the way you think LS. If I had my way, Kenny and Eddie would be negotiating, be it at a table, in a locked room, or on Jerry Springer with skanks thrown in for ratings.
The hobo is doing alright during the strike, I’m picketing in an out of the way location so I don’t have to engage in dumbassery like symbolism or vandalizing signs, and I took pt work so my bills stay paid.
There is more to fixing OT than rostering. When I put in time on the spareboard, due to the rotating list I either find out the day before that I’m doing a specific shift (because of a known absence, day off with permission, or open shift caused by lack of rostering), or I’m told a time to show up and I either fill in for a last-minute absence, do standby duty (sit in a bus until I’m needed, sometimes it’s boring, sometimes non-stop), or do what are called extras, which are bus trips that could not be scheduled into regular shifts due to the rush hour nature of the job. If you ride the same bus every day and there’s a different driver every day, that’s why.
I mentioned many factors that lead to the need for the 6 day a week crew, of which rostering is only one. Of them, this is the only one that can be addressed in the collective agreement. By cutting the number of shifts that can’t be picked due to the current process, the size of the spareboard will decrease. However, as anyone who has done time on the ‘board can tell you, the OT money is in reports (60+ hours a week potentially), not assigned shifts (steady 48-52 hours a week).
When the strike began and we were presented with 2 options, rostering was a red herring as there were 28 other outstanding issues (I prefer the city’s method of counting issues over the union’s), many that would have affected the other divisions in transit, ones that people need education for I might add. What we’re down to now is extremely close and unless there’s table time, there’s nothing.
So, Kenny and Eddie both, STOP PLAYING THE BLAME GAME, START TALKING!
PDG FTW.
SHITD I disagree about it being an essential service. Except Access-a-bus that IMO is definately an essential service because of the difficulties in dealing with mentally handicapped, the needs of crippled people & their safe transport issues, not to mention how heavy the motorized chairs are.
BUt i didn’t skim your response & overtime isn’t the fault of the drivers. Management makes up the shifts. So They need to set it up so that there is no over time unless, there is a shortage of skilled workers becasue of sickness, accidents , etc.
IF there are too many shifts & not enough workers to do them so you have to pay overtime…is that the drivers fault ?
I think not, that is a too few worker problem, so hire a few more.
Plus if they have to make cuts, start at the top , its damn hard to scream & hollar we’re getting wage cuts when those doing the cutting have taken as big or bigger cut themselves !
I can never be mad at MT drivers ever for being on strike when I know that the Hobo’s among the pack. He’s an example of a great bus driver. I know cause I used to take his bus. And he’s been the most educated and eloquent voice during this whole thing on here.
Do you have an oil can with fire in it like bums do for heat where you’re picketing, PDG? Because the one at the bridge terminal makes me LOL.
BTW: which terminals are people picketing at? I haven’t seen any picketing until today when I took my mom across the bridge. The bum fire killed me. When my dad was on strike when I was little, he used to take me to the picket house — you guys need one of those. It had tv and donuts.
The picketing schedule is Mon-Fri, 8 to 4, weather allowing.
I guess we’ll see today where the union stands. Listening to the radio this morning on my way to work, there was an interview with a striker on the picket line accusing the city of making this a political move, forcing a vote to see where the union stands. The dumbass hasn’t even read any of the contract, and already showing a poor attitude, considering the union left the table and hasn’t “bargained” with the city since. At least the city is showing they are trying to resolve the situation, and it doesn’t seem to matter what their position is, they are inherently evil in the eyes of the union. Of course the city wants to see where the union stands, what a stupid statement!!!