CTA Tattler

Everyone has a gun to the rider's head, CTA's inept management, the legislature, and of course some highly paid unionized pensioned public employees. I think the union is smart to show everyone the public pain that is inflicted upon the city when no action is taken. Of course the bailout will primarily go for their salaries, pensions, and other post employment benefits which composes the primary operating expense of the CTA. No one in the private sector enjoys the type of benefits and pensions and early retirement opportunities that public sector employees receive and the fact that they all reach retirement age at the same time due to the baby boom is going to have all sectors of government facing funding crises soon.

"No one in the private sector enjoys the type of benefits and pensions and early retirement opportunities that public sector employees receive and the fact that they all reach retirement age at the same time due to the baby boom is going to have all sectors of government facing funding crises soon."

Public sector employee salaries are available as a matter of public record. I'd love to see you back this up with some of that readily available data. The same with your comment that the "the bailout will primarily go for their salaries, pensions, and other post employment benefits which composes the primary operating expense of the CTA."

But even if that's true, so what? Guess what? Without employees, the CTA doesn't work. If you don't pay employees well and offer good benefits, you won't attract good people. Do you really want to trust your commute, heck, your life, to somebody who is willing to work for $10 with no benefits? When you're complaining about the "high" pay of public employees, and the crappy state of the CTA remember one thing: you get what you pay for.

But all that ignorant anti-worker sentiment aside, I think this is a great idea. It's one day. And it's going to SUCK. I have no idea how I'm going to get to work, and my gentle hints to my boss that she let me work from home or take a personal day went blissfully unheeded. However, when you have a state legislature, that you've posted about Kevin, making comments about how they can't see what good it would do the rest of the state to sufficiently fund Chicago public transit, what better way to prove its necessity than to just shut it down? Show the legislature and the downstate folks what actually happens when people in Chicago, the economic hub of this state, can't get to work.

People think the CTA sucks, the employees get paid too much (so absurd, but I digress), well let's see what it would be like in Chicago for one day with no public transportation.

Kevin, I also completely disagree with you. Let Chicago decline into mass chaos Monday morning and it will make NATIONAL news. Certainly the media in order to accurately report why the walkout happened will feature the completely dysfunctional state government as a major players for the problem. This type of exposure on a national level would only happen if the CTA shuts down. I also make a bet the shutdown story will get linked with Chicago's Olympic bid as well. That will certainly get Daley more fired up too.

I think the unions should suggest that everyone stuck at home Monday repeatedly call the Governor, Madigan, Jones, Cross, and their local elected leaders and tell them to get in session now and pass a bill.

I have to agree. STRIKE/JOB ACTION, one day will cause more light to be shed on this problem than all the protest at Thompson.

I support the strike!

I SUPPORT THE STRIKE! Especially since I'll be out of town that day.
But really, this is perfect. A slap in the face of blagobitch. He never wanted a doomsday, now he has no choice--complete shutdown.
The streets are going to be absolutely crazy!

Blago-grinch lives five blocks from me. I'm going to knock on his door and see if he'll give me a ride to work. I really wanted to tell my bus driver this morning that, while I'll be inconvenienced, I support the job action. Unfortunately, he was mean and incommunicative. He then began clipping his nails WHILE DRIVING THE BUS. How soon can I sign up to be a "secret shopper?" Back to the job action: I'm trying really hard to love the CTA and am taking the bus by choice after eight years of driving to work. All I want for Christmas is my bus to run.

I completely support the strike as well. I won't have the ability to earn a living that day: I have no means of getting downtown other than the subway.

But a drastic measure like this will make more people aware of the problem, which will increase the pressure on downstate Illinois a thousandfold. And given the way that they are d--king around, they need that pressure to be increased; they are evidently not going to be responsible and mature any other way.

I'm in full support of the workers job action. I think you'd have a hard time getting anyone in Chicago proper to speak out against transit funding. But what this is going to do is (hopefully) significantly impact those counties and communities AROUND Chicago. That's where we need more support from.

Legislators from outside of Chicago wonder why they have to help out the city without ever acknowledging that state taxes paid in the city go to help their communities as well. It's a balancing act that Springfield hasn't learned to master yet.

Unfortunately, the work action comes on a day when I really do need to use the CTA. Damn my luck!

It's already moot.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-cta-walkoff_webdec15,1,1386886.story

"After meeting with a group of religious leaders who expressed concerns about the impact of the proposed job action on their communities, the unions representing CTA workers called off a job action that was scheduled to begin Sunday night and run through Monday."

And, I'll also add this: I'll take one day of massive inconvenience over years upon years of heavy inconvenience (broken-down subway cars, slow zones because there's not enough to fix them, half the bus routes cut, maybe someday cutting overnight service on some subways, etc.). Chicago's mass transit needs full funding and it's needed it for a while. I've not been called upon myself to sacrifice yet for that cause. I'll cheerfully do so Monday if it becomes necessary.

Well, they're reporting that the unions decided "meh, let's not do this" after talking to a bunch of pastors. Oh, very, very smart. Appeasement and wimping out is always a effective tactic towards getting your point across.

Darn, and I was really looking forward to seeing what kind of impact the walk-out was going to make on Monday.

Do the comment threads here seem to anyone else to be disproportionately populated with anti-worker sentiment and CTA abolitionists? I feel like the first comment in nearly every thread is something like, "Well, if those lazy CTA workers didn't bring in six figures a year...."

Also, Ed brings up a great point about the national media coverage. I already supported the walk-out in principle, but that removed a lot of my ambivalence about whether it would be effective.

Apologies for not knowing the name of the owner/writer of CTA Tattler but...

I think you should add a permanent section to the pages with links to Illinois Congress addresses and emails so everyone can voice their concerns.

I found out about the potential strike from the Red Eye this morning at quarter to 9. Then I saw Bob S.'s post that the Trib reports it's off. So in that one hour, I have heard just about everyone (on the streets and in my workplace) discussing it. EVERYONE was concerned with how they will get to work and such.

I think this may be the push everyone needs to stop complaining on a blog (not pointing fingers here) and actually WRITE to the people who can do something. Threaten not to vote for them and tell other non-CTA voters to do the same if they don't act immediately.

My two cents...

What a lame wuss-out. Why didn't they go through with it? Duh, it would be inconvenient, that's the POINT.

Adam: Of course there's a lot of anti-worker sentiment here.
CTA employees are way overpaid, get benefits that the rest of us can't get & most importantly, most of them treat us, the riders like shit!

Sure, there are some good ones, but how many of us have had our perfectly good farecards rejected by the farebox & all you get is a grunt of some sort from the driver?
Or drivers that won't pull to the curb when there's plenty of room.
Or L motormen stopping way past the stop marks forcing everyone to walk further to the stairs & then you miss the bus because of that.
Which brings up the bus drivers who deliberately leave early or late & get away with it because there's no decent monitoring of them by computer when the street corner supervisors aren't on duty.
Or all the drivers that are late to the shift change point, particularly the ones from the North Park garage that are always late at Clark & Foster, Sheridan & Foster & Broadway & Foster.
Or the myriad of other annoyances that we're forced to put up with.

I would love to see the CTA refuse a pay increase, take the strike & hire replacements at a lower wage & mostly part timers with no benefits.

Or another direction you could take it is that actually all jobs should be well-paid and have good benefits, and workers should organize to fight for that -- rather than advocating destroying public service as one of the last bastions of a humane stance toward workers.

CTA workers are not, in my experience, any worse than workers in any industry, and they're often better. Give me the CTA over Comcast any day.

I cant believe they arnt doing this! What a letdown. I guess we are all going to roll over for Springfield again

I'm disappointed, too, that the job action was called off. It would have served as a sneak preview of what we are facing if the Springfield Scum continues its record of absolute failure and betrayal. Bluffing and then folding is a terrible strategy.

Still, the unions remain the only group that has even tried to do something about this outrage. The streets of Chicago and Cook should have been filled with angry and maybe violent demonstrators long ago. Springfield should be under siege by now. Impeachment should be well under way for blag, and legislative Dems should have been forced to fire Madigan and Jones from their "leadership" roles.

But we, the citizens, the public transportation customers have done nothing. Only the unions got it together to even try to do something. It's a shame that they folded, and I hope they'll be back to fight another day. In the meantime there's no real cure except to shovel the shit out of Springfield by any means possible. That will take a lot more than just the CTA employees.

Unidicted Co-conspirtor,

Sorry, but your post seems to be borne of jealousy and anger more than anything else.

*** "CTA employees are way overpaid, get benefits that the rest of us can't get & most importantly, most of them treat us, the riders like shit!" ***

Overpaid? Hardly. It can be a really shit job. Look at some of the other riders around you, the rotten neighborhoods and the way other drivers act on the road. Not pretty.
As far as benefits, yes, they get things that most of us can only dream of. But thats what they've been promised, by contract. So, honor it. And yes, i think that future hires should get reduced benefits that are more in line with the private sector.

*** "Sure, there are some good ones, but how many of us have had our perfectly good farecards rejected by the farebox & all you get is a grunt of some sort from the driver?" ***
Yeah, some of them suck and i'd like to have their heads on the end of a sharpened flaming stick, but like you said, there are some good ones. So every CTA employee should be punished?
Do i think that the CTA should be able to fire the lazy and/or nasty deadwood that they have? Absolutely. Maybe they should work on that problem instead of hurting everyone based upon broad stereotypes.

*** I would love to see the CTA refuse a pay increase, take the strike & hire replacements at a lower wage & mostly part timers with no benefits." ***

Sorry, but i don't relish the race to the bottom rung of standards in employment wages or job security for anyone. Personally, i'm already there and let me tell you, it sucks. I fail to see how treating more people like worthless shit will help any of us.

Im going to agree with crankyd on this one. Think of all the annoyances and disturbing things we, as riders, often have to deal with on the CTA. CTA workers, whether it be the customer assistants, or TO's, or whomever, have to deal with those things for a full shift day-day rather than just a 1 hour commute. And hiring people part time/no benefits, and with low wages? Thats only going to make matters worse. How committed to one's job will those workers be when they're only making a low hourly wage? I certainly wouldn't deal with drunks,hobos, and the smell for that kind of money.

I too am disappointed there won't be a walk out. I think it would have been(as inconvenient as it would have been for those of us staying home from work) a strong and forceful message to Springfield. And, as others have said in their comments, it would have perhaps motivated the rest of us to speak up a lot more to the people that need to hear it.

CTA workers aren't overpaid. There are just a lot of people who are underpaid out there. And you can thank the anti-union movements of the last 30 years for that.

I'm not saying all our problems would be solved by unions, and parts of the industrial-era model for unions wouldn't work today, but the average working person would be better off represented by a union than not.

One issue that can really mess-up the issue is pensions. While it's not hard to find private-sector retirees that'll tell you that their (now defunct) company's pension promises weren't worth a hill of beans despite how hard their union fought for them, it's a little different in the public sector.

However, it would be a mistake to believe that just because the government isn't going to disappear, that a government pension will ever be paid as promised. Just ask retirees in Oregon's public employees system. Not only won't they collect some promised benefits, many of them had to pay-back money that the state government promised them, and paid them because promises were renigged on retro-actively.

So the assumption that public employees will collect pentions, but private sector employees will never see their pensions is no longer valid.

Also, until you've done their job day in and day out, you can't really say if they're overpaid or not. Next time you get a chance, while driving, keep your eye on traffic, and keep an eye out for people waiting at bus stops. Now imagine dealing with the attitudes that some of these people give you, and remember to keep an eye on them while the vehicle is in motion, too. Oh... and you're not driving your little car. You've got a huge vehicle that barely fits in the lane. Watch out for those opening car doors, too. And then imagine having to do this for eight hours a day, day in, day out. Do you really think they're still overpaid?

The bottom line is they're earning their keep, and then some. If there are others out in the world that aren't being paid what their worth, then that's another problem all together.

As for the walk-out, I don't think they should have even threatened it. It's only value would be as a bluff, but the idiots down in Springfield aren't playing the game logically. Therefore the bluff was destined to not accomplish it's goal.

Something needs to happen. But while the job action was something, it wasn't the right something.

Unindicted:

CTA workers have better benefits not because the political establishment smiles on the CTA (indeed the opposite is true), but because they're unionized. That means they have an agent who negotiates compensation for them collectively, and, not surprisingly, they do better in certain respects than a lot of the 90% of the workforce that goes it alone.

If you want better benefits, I suggest you unionize your workplace or find a unionized workplace. Employers are bargaining collectively on behalf of numerous of individuals (shareholders) and so are almost always going to have more bargaining power than a single employee negotiating on behalf of himself who has no leverage except for the all-or-nothing "threat" of looking for work elsewhere.

So the problem is that most employees have no bargaining power, not that CTA employees have some.

And in any event, so far as I can tell, the average CTA employee out in the "field" works under much more unpleasant conditions (exposure to the elements, the public, to risk of crime) than the typical person with an office or factory job. If you want competent people to work under those conditions - and with the threat of sudden and massive layoffs every few months or years -- it seems to me you might actually have to compensate them better than a lot of other kinds of workers.

Dear everybody who complains about other people getting pensions:

I have three words of advice: buy an annuity.

The fact that your employer isn't providing you a pension means that you're getting paid more in cash now than you otherwise would. That means you're being given more options, not fewer.

If you want certainty about your retirement income (a wise idea), then spend some of the extra cash compensation you're getting on annuities - or put it in a retirement savings account and buy an annuity when you reach retirement age.

Unlike people whose compensation comes partly in the form of pensions, you also have a second option: if you're feeling lucky (or just planning on dying early), you can spend all of your cash income now.

Now, if your real complaint is that your overall compensation just isn't high enough, that's another matter. But in that case, your dispute is with your employer. Ask for a raise or find a better job, but urging a labor market race-to-the-bottom by lowering other people's compensation isn't going to help anyone much.

Sincerely,

The Invisible Hand

Well, we all apparently know the true answer to every get-rich-quick scheme now: work for the CTA! Who would have guessed..

I'm sorry the cancelled the strike. It would have been great to see a strong union supported action, and I do think it would have forced the hand of the legislature. We are looking at a paralyzed city sometime in the near future without a drastic change, and I'm not talking the hiring of scab labor. I'd have rather dealt with one day of horrific inconvenience rather than a future of reduced service and higher prices.

I work three jobs. Without the buses and trains, I can't get to work. The future is not looking particularly comfortable right now.

Not that anyone cares. I've written my representatives four times so far, and the only answer I get is "the suburbs need new parking lots, sorry."

Kevin,

You are dead wrong here. The poor transit service as-is is doing enough to “piss off riders and cause businesses to lose lots of money.” Great things could happen as a result of a focused job-action from the Union. Of course it would have to be backed-up with 100% support from commuters. How about you put your cynicism aside for one bloody day?

People like Unindicted Co-conspirator also have to tone down the whining and condescension – again - just for one day.

I am especially upset by Co-conspirator’s 12/14/2007 comment regarding how they “would love to see the CTA refuse a pay increase, take the strike & hire replacements at a lower wage & mostly part timers with no benefits.”

What kind of abysmal somebody openly wishes difficult, thankless work on others?

Has Unindicted Co-conspirator ever struggled to perform well at a part-time low-wage job without benefits? Maybe this person is a closeted down-stater.

At any rate, I do NOT support the idea that shuttling my butt to and from work every day should be a dangerous, difficult, low-paying job.

I feel that in addition to a good wage with all the trimmings, a CTA employee should have excellent training with opportunities to advance, as well as vigorous protection under occupational health and safety laws.

If it takes a measly one day “job action” to make this a continuing reality, then I am willing to give it a try. We should all be willing to give up one day.

And for all of you doubters out there, take a minute to remember how back in September over 200 disabled protesters blocked the entrances to the American Medical Association’s headquarters. After only three hours of being acquainted with what it would be like to be stuck in a nursing home, Blagojevich agreed to discuss housing options for people with disabilities.

I have struggled at a low pay, minimum wage jog.
I have lived in Rogers Park for almost 60 years & have never had a car.
When I was young CTA workers made around the same as most people who rode the CTA.
Now they make twice what most CTA riders make.
Except for a few bus routes [the North Side express buses for the most part] most CTA riders are poor!
Every time they demand more money, they get more money.
They have a contract that prevents hiring employees for a half shift, but large numbers of CTA drivers work split shifts because there isn't a need for them midday.
The CTA needs a core of full time drivers & motormen, but the rest should be doing only a half shift, either morning or afternoon rush hours.
I have decades of riding the CTA & seeing it decay, do you?

Well Unindicted Co-conspirator, it's too bad that you wish CTA workers would be as lowly and underpaid as whatever it is you do for a living.

Maybe this Christmas your wish will come true!

"Has Unindicted Co-conspirator ever struggled to perform well at a part-time low-wage job without benefits? Maybe this person is a closeted down-stater.

At any rate, I do NOT support the idea that shuttling my butt to and from work every day should be a dangerous, difficult, low-paying job. "

I have absolutely no idea how your comments have the slightest thing to do with what is being discussed. A CTA job is not low-paying without benefits. I think you know that very well. Even if by some miracle the wages and benefits of CTA employees are cut by over 30% it would still be higher than comparable jobs. So it is increadibly false and misleading to suggest that anyone who wants to trim employee costs is for people having "a part time low-wage job without benefits".

"I'm not saying all our problems would be solved by unions, and parts of the industrial-era model for unions wouldn't work today, but the average working person would be better off represented by a union than not. "

Right. But the people who cannot get a good job because of the inefficiances that unions create would be worse off. Each company or governmental organization that has union workers must higher fewer people and spend less money on everything. They cannot afford as much. There are less people not only working for them but working for the companies they hire or purchase things from since they are doing less expansion, development, research, or other activities. And since there are fewer jobs that exist it means that there is fewer spending on everything and the economy is not as strong as otherwise would have been. The effect of this, of course, is that there is even further fewer jobs than otherwise would have been the case. It is long past the time when unions provided a good service. It worked well in the 19th and early 20th century when there often was one employer in an area that provided a huge portion of the jobs and when it was much less easy to simply move if you wanted to do something else. At that time, there was an incentive for employers to expoit the workers (and they often did). But now, anyone who does not like a job can pretty easilly just get another one. Sometimes small sacrifices will be required but nobody is trapped with a particular employer. There is no need anymore for unions to protect workers from anything. The marketplace works perfectly fine in providing incentives for people to pay workers fairly and to provide good working conditions.

I think the answer just became obvious: Anyone who thinks that CTA workers could be fired, and instantly replaced by a lower-paid part-time workforce should instead better their own lives by getting one of these plum jobs for themselves.

I always find it interesting that the people who complain the most about a group of workers being over-paid never seem to want that job, even at what they consider a wage that's beyond market value.

If you think CTA workers are overpaid, get a CTA job. If you think that garbage collectors, teachers, police officers, etc. are overpaid, and that you're underpaid, then the obvious answer is to get one of those jobs.

After all, as MK says, "anyone who does not like a job can pretty easilly just get another one".

Here is a telling detail about the hard-working CTA staff:

http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/5364.html

Based on the performance of the 151 bus route this morning, you'd think the job action was already started. I waited nearly 20 minutes before I could board a bus (3 went by that were so full there was no room at all).