AL MARGULIES, BOB CUMMINGS AND TRIMET'S ANNUAL APPRECIATION / ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THEIR TOP OPERATORS OF THE YEAR

It's an annual event. Those selected are  chosen from those who have NO Preventable Accidents, NO (SIP'S) or complaints from their customers, NO time-loss. They're voted in by their own. It's a BIG DEAL and very difficult to attain.

The creme de la creme !!

click image for zoom

As you can see from the snap shot above, Margulies doesn't have the capacity to recognize the difficulty in achieving this honor. He never received it or any others that I'm aware of in the years he drove. And Cummings hasn't received any accolades for the years he put in either.

This is exactly how Margulies feels about his former co-workers. He's written the Rantings Blog for years under the guise of being pro Union but all the while he spews hatred and publicly incites others against us. Lane Jensen's a good example. He was a follower of his Blog.  They latched on to each other and Jensen found his God in Al and Bob who showed him the way, even the way to jail. Many of the complaints Operators receive are called in by Jensen. He drives around filming buses, reporting Ops to Customer Service. Then displaying it on twitter. Some Operators may have been disqualified from these awards because of Jensen.

Bob Cummings

Former Spotter, Center Street

As you can see, he has a 'finger' too. Must be their intellectual property.  

Justina Carrillo, Mini Operator of the Year, shared (with Cummings over 3 years ago) some of what she went through with a worker's comp claim. Why did he feel he had to visit his problems with McFarlane on her by reprimanding her publicly for something that has nothing to do with this award? Instead of congratulating her, he chose to invalidate her (comment in the snap shot above) Winning it is a big deal. It's like some of the Operators would talk to him at the end of the shift and he apparently put it all in a little teeny tiny hole in his head somewhere so he could use it later against them when an opportunity arrived. Similar to Al secretly tape-recording co-workers then publishing it on his site.

Then they put up the photoshopped picture of McFarlane which degrades the entire process. Love him or not, Op of The Year is a big deal. It validates our presence on the streets as good people doing good things in the community! 

Everything's negative with these two.  Cummings used to write up Operators on a daily basis for years then went to Union Meetings crying how he was THE ONLY UNION MEMBER WHO GIVES A SHIT!! 

Instead of using the Operator of the Year award as a good thing, something we're proud of,  they use it as another point of contention and retribution against those who are different then themselves.  

INSUBORDINATION

A while back, while I was in a 'mandated meeting' with the Manager of my garage, and after going back and forth with her I finally said, "Looks like I'm the only adult in the room".  She threatened to charge me with insubordination. Not the first time. You're not allowed to talk, you don't have 1st Amendment rights. My Union Rep was in there as well but she knew she was the one with the least authenticity and inadvertently blurted it out. "You're insubordinate!!" Not the first time she's threatened it. With this manager it comes down to a power play. She isn't qualified for the job, doesn't have the skills, treats her employees like shit and when she finds herself up against someone who's considerably smarter than she is, she uses her power inappropriately. Oy, what a piece 'a work!! How I miss those days...  NOT!! 

Trimet has a HUGE problem with their Managers and Executives creating hostile and bullying work environments for their Union workers. Her husband  (retired or on disability) was Union for years and her daughter works here as well. Her family receives Union and non-Union benefits, while at the same time she stabs Union workers in the back. 

After seeing how County workers (collectively and in solidarity) went after Sheriff Dan Stanton by “overwhelmingly” approving a vote of no-confidence", which led to an internal investigation, I don't understand why ATU hasn't  gotten involved in a similar action against Neil McFarlane.

NO - CONFIDENCE VOTE

I'd like to see ATU Members come together and vote 'no-confidence' against him. It's not like you can call or arrange to meet up with him. He has a closed door policy and the Board of Directors aren't interested. He's removed himself from our building at the expense of the taxpayers. It's like he's this invisible entity all powerful and full of grandiosity and narcissism.

If the Board of Directors positions were elected rather than appointed by the Governor they'd be accountable and their workers concerns would become their concerns. If we were to hand in a no-confidence against McFarlane with the current Board of Directors it wouldn't be taken seriously because they're all buddies. Good 'ol boy stuff. 

There also needs to be a serious internal audit on business trips and personal expenses from the Executives. Similar to this guy:

According to Rantings of a Former Trimet Bus Driver,  STEVE BANTA was caught ripping off another agency.

As it stands, Trimet is a Public Agency without oversight and accountability. I'd like to see a class action suit filed against them by all those workers forced out through harassment, mobbing, forced retirement, denied workers comp claims (termination through time-loss), etc. Plus active employees should file personal injury lawsuits against the individual Managers and Executives and a class action against the Agency as a whole and have a third party come in, clean house and rebuild. 

It's a terribly hostile environment based on personalities and religious beliefs. They pick and choose which employees are deserving of the enforcement of their HR policies. They have policies in place which were meant to protect the workforce. Respectful Workplace, anti Bullying, Hostile work environment, IT but, again they pick and choose who they feel is worthy of working in a hostile free environment and who isn't - based on personalities and religious beliefs. 

In my experience, they're bottom feeders. Their managers are mostly people who are grossly under qualified for their positions because they take orders, take enormous salaries and come to the job without a conscience. Sociopaths.  

As an example, several years ago they violated my HIPPA by disclosing my FMLA diagnosis to co-workers. Wanting to resolve the issue in-house first, which was assumably those appointed to oversight the agency aka the Board of Directors, who then refused to even acknowledge me. I didn't talk about it in a public meeting but I did send each one an e-mail with supporting documentation. I even made calls but they were never returned. 

There's a big problem in the agency - in terms of how they treat their employees and the public.  As a Public Agency, I think it's incumbent upon the Union and the riders to lobby the legislature and the Governor who appoints the Board to make the Board of Directors positions a part of the political process. The Board needs to be elected positions, made up of people from within the riding community.  

The current Board's interests are street  planning and land use. They're not interested in seeing a work environment built on Dignity. They're not interested in seeing a good moral. They're not interested in the safety or the health of the work force.Same with the riders. Trimet is an oligarchy in the truest sense of the word. 

DEMOCRACY DISREGARDED

"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."   Alfred Einstein

Democracy Disregarded

IN THE END...

Ballots:

5176 Ballots were mailed out

2350 voted

 (about 100 less than last time)

45.4% of membership voted on the rerun

Final count:

PRESIDENT

Shirley Block - 1279 

Bruce Hansen - 680

Henry Beasley - 381

VP

Jonathan Hunt - 1192

Chris Day - 1111

Bruce Hansen

In this day and age,  evil seems to prevail. That's why people like Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are the frontrunners for the Presidency of this Country.  It's come down to who hates the most and who're the biggest crooks liars and thiefs.

The real winners are those who see our politics, be it National or a local Union election,  as a Revolution for Change. We've planted the seed - watch it grow come the next election. The losers, at least today are the members of ATU 757. The real losers are those who didn't care enough about the quality and safety of their jobs to vote.

Bruce Hansen did the right thing - always has - that's who he is.  I'm proud of him for taking on the faces of evil. And in the end he's the real winner as are all of us who supported his extraordinary level of experience, brilliance, knowledge and compassion for todays Worker vs the Trimet business as usual, Oligarchs. A system made up of greedy hateful retaliatory bullies. Not surprisingly similar to the traits of Shirley Block, Jonathan Hunt and Mary Longoria.  It's a conundrum.

If Trimet Union members are to survive they'll eventually need to form a Union of their own. Trimet members with a strike clause could / would quite literally shut Tri-County service down within hours.

Chris Day

He gave Hunt a run for his money.  I'm confident this won't stop him from focusing his energy on the business dealings of our Union. An overseer of how things are supposed to be. A mosquito in their ass!!

VOTE

DON'T BE A DICK!

V O T E

VOTE

VOTE

VOTE

VOTE

Union label from the early 1970s. 

This print shop printed newspapers, pamphlets, and flyers for many radical movements.

NO STRIKE CLAUSE - EVER WONDER HOW IT CAME ABOUT?

So, here's something that just blew me off my feet.  I contacted NW LaborPress in March to see if they'd be willing to go through their archives to find an article Jonathan Hunt wrote in 2006 about giving up our Right to Strike.

Our ATU website archive only goes back to 2009.

I talked with Office manager Cheri Rice – several times. My phone shows 7 calls. She was very nice, initially. Explained that the archives were not electronically kept. Explained that they were trying to get a paper out and wouldn't have time that particular week. Explained she was part-time. No problemo. 

Couple weeks later I called back. She asked if someone named 'Don' called me. I said, "No". Each call I made I offered my time and assistance and if that wasn't OK then I offered to pay them for theirs.  Each call she reiterated that someone would get ahold of me. No worries.  No one ever did.

So now we're down to 12 days before the votes are counted and I'm not hearing back. They just went silent.  

Just got off the phone with her. Ms 'nice as apple pie' suddenly turned into the evil one. Rude, flippant, interrupting, yelling then she hung up on me.  But before she hung up, she said something that was of such concern that, instead of leaving to run some badly needed errands, I'm writing this.

Cheri asked,  "Didn't you hear back from the Union?

Me, "No, why would I hear back from them?" 

LaborPress, "We aren't allowed to give out any information without their permission."

Me, "Why didn't you tell me this before?"

LaborPress, "NO!  WE TALKED TO THEM. YOU HAVE TO GET THEIR PERMISSION!!  YOU!!"

Me, "Huh?  I'm frustrated because you never got back with me. I've been waiting all this time. Why didn't you just tell me that in the first place?"  "I wanted to publish it on my blog before the election." 

LaborPress, "ARE YOU THREATENING ME???!!!!!  

Me, "Who'd you talk to over there?" 

LaborPress, "SQUACK ARRCK SHRIEK...  SLAM goes the phone!!  !!!  

hmmm...

T  H  I  N  K  

A  B  O  U  T

I  T !!