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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (June 7, 2013)
Are TriMet managers too busy to bargain with ATU? No word from TriMet board as labor battle drags on By DON McINTOSH Associate Editor TriMet’s May 22 board meeting be- gan with praise for workers. Neil Mc- Farlane, general manager of a transit agency that’s deep into a public battle with its union, told the board nothing gives him greater pleasure than present- ing the awards for Bus Operator of the Year, Light Rail Operator of the Year, and Part-Time Operator of the Year. The three model workers were called forward. McFarlane and board members thanked them for their service and commended them for setting a stan- dard. Did the honorees want to say a few words? We’ll never know. Willie Jack, Ivan Semenyuk, and Terrie Sweet (chosen by their co-workers) were not invited to speak. But Sweet, the Part- time Operator of the Year, stayed to ob- serve the board meeting, and as it drew to a close, was approached by this re- porter. “What would I have said? Well, he has said you’ve got to pay to keep good people,” Sweet said, referring to Mc- Farlane’s defense of last year’s man- agement pay increases. “But we are PAGE 2 be unavailable. It appears good people, and we TriMet manager schedules haven’t had a merit in- got really tight just as the crease since 1984.” union agreed to begin bar- It’s no wonder the gaining. There were vaca- TriMet brass didn’t in- tions, and time-consuming vite her to speak. But legal matters to attend to, it’s not clear TriMet is and other unspecified eager to hear from her schedule conflicts. The union either — judging May dates were unavail- from back-and-forth able due to scheduled sur- correspondence be- gical procedures and other tween Amalgamated short-notice conflicts, Transit Union Local Stedman wrote. As for 757 President Bruce T ERRIE S WEET June, Stedman wrote, Hansen and Randy Part-Time Operator Shelly Lomax, executive Stedman, TriMet’s ex- of the Year at TriMet director of operations, ecutive director of labor relations and human resources. The let- needs to be there, and she’ll be entirely ters are full of name-calling and provo- unavailable from June 3 to June 27 due cation, and not from the union side. to a court case. And in July, federal trial [Judge for yourself at nwlaborpress. dates and long-standing travel plans preclude other dates, except for July 2 org/thetrimetletters.pdf] Since November, TriMet has ac- and 3. The union responded that July 2 and cused Local 757 of “delaying tactics” for refusing to bargain behind closed 3 don’t work, and proposed eight other doors while a legal dispute was pend- dates in July, and eight in August. ing over whether talks would be open TriMet countered with 28 dates in Au- to the public. But the union changed gust and September. So they may meet … in August. tack in April, and on April 29, Local Back at the May 22 board meeting, 757 President Hansen proposed six there was no sign that board members dates in May and 10 dates in June. A week later, Stedman agreed to a are perturbed by TriMet’s never-ending single meeting seven weeks out (June bad press. If anything, they seemed to 24). And two days after that, Stedman back up the general manager. KOIN-TV had confronted McFar- followed up to say even that date would NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS lane May 15 and 16 over lavish man- agement salaries — and raises that were buried in a $20 million “contingency fund” in last year’s budget. TriMet has 70 managers who make over $100,000 a year, KOIN’s Jeff Gianola reported. At the board meeting, member Craig Prosser seemed to respond to that. A committee had reviewed nonunion wages, he said, and found them to be “within the range of comparability” to other cities. McFarlane makes $221,450 a year. Lomax makes $180,000. Sted- man and TriMet general counsel Jana Toran make $175,000. TriMet was also in the news May 20 after a federal judge chastised TriMet and fined the agency $5,000 for with- holding internal emails from attorneys in a lawsuit on behalf of two pedestri- ans killed by a bus in 2010. Toran, the attorney, told the board it was a misun- derstanding: TriMet is unable to search for electronic files. Plus, there were only 600 pages relevant to the case, and it would take 34 days for TriMet to pro- vide them. The board seemed to accept that explanation, and asked no ques- tions. But members of the public held forth for over an hour in three-minute chunks, most of them pushing for the board to extend transfer times. One man played a recording of a flushing toilet as he placed dollar bills in a paper “toilet” — to lampoon TriMet’s investment in the little-used WES commuter rail service. The board approved a budget that re- stores some past service cuts, thanks to increased payroll tax revenue. But there was no reduction in fares, which are some of the highest in the nation. Regu- lar adult tickets are now $2.50. And June marks one year since TriMet ended free service in the downtown area, for which Portland was once famous. (International Standard Serial Number 0894-444X) Established in 1900 at Portland, Oregon as a voice of the labor movement. 4275 NE Halsey St., P.O. Box 13150, Portland, Ore. 97213 Telephone: (503) 288-3311 Editor: Michael Gutwig Staff: Don McIntosh, Cheri Rice Published on a semi-monthly basis on the first and third Fridays of each month by the Oregon Labor Press Publishing Co. Inc., a non- profit corporation owned by 20 unions and councils including the Oregon AFL-CIO. Serving more than 120 union organizations in Ore- gon and SW Washington. Subscriptions $13.75 per year for union members. Group rates available to trade union organizations. PERIODICALS POSTAGE PAID AT PORTLAND, OREGON. CHANGE OF ADDRESS NOTICE: Three weeks are required for a change of address. When ordering a change, please give your old and new addresses and the name and number of your local union. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS, P.O. BOX 13150, PORTLAND, OR 97213-0150 JUNE 7, 2013
