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August 2024 Newsletter

Kim Meliza
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New ATU 1576 Executive Board Officers 

At the July Charter meeting, nominations for Executive Board positions for Community Transit, Island Transit Camano and Island Transit Whidbey were made. The vacancy for Community Transit was because Kim Meliza was appointed Recording Secretary, the vacancy for Island Transit Whidbey was because Rob Bozin retired, and the vacancy for Island Transit Camano was because no one stepped forward at the last election. Two of the three vacancies were filled at the August Charter meeting. Island Transit Camano nominations were closed with no one stepping forward. Nominations for a similar vacancy at Transdev Everett have been posted at the property and will be heard at the September Charter meeting.

Island Transit - Susan Lien has worked 5 years as an operator at Island Transit. She joined the union right away. She said, “It just feels right”. She has been a shop steward for the last 4 years because she wanted to be an ally to our strong team of drivers, and she felt proud to be part of the workers. She says she has a lot to learn. Specifically, the boundaries and how big the rules can be. Executive Board Officer Traynor Hunt said Susan was concerned about not having the time to devote to being an Executive Board Officer, but he encouraged her because she would really be helping, she would do a terrific job, and she would enjoy the position. Executive Board Officer Traynor Hunt approved Susan’s appointment, and she was installed by President Julien at the July Executive Board meeting. We still do not have an Executive Board Officer for Island Transit, Camano.

Community Transit – Eric Adams has worked in the Transportation industry for the last 19 years. 14 of those years were at First Transit Everett where he worked as an Operator and a Dispatcher/Supervisor. He also served as Secretary/Treasurer for Local 130 and has worked as a Shop Steward at CT for the last 4 years. Eric is looking forward to representing members at the Ride Store and assisting on the negotiating team working on bringing Transdev Everett’s members and work in-house. Eric was installed by President Julien at the August Charter meeting.

RCW 9A.36.031 Assault in the Third Degree

CT – Shelby Moan, newly promoted term-limited Instructor, brought forward to the Executive Board the idea of revising the public employee protection law. The current law protects specific public transit employees from assault. It’s a 3rd class felony. She wanted to change the bill to include all public facing transit workers, and we couldn’t have agreed more. Additionally, we wanted it to be more in line with the infrastructure bill. While President Julien and Financial Secretary Thompson were at the ATU Legislative Council in July, they brought the proposal forward and the Legislative Council agreed the law should be changed to include ALL transit workers (Road Supervisors, Service Ambassadors, Customer Service Specialists, etc.). It was then taken to the Washington State Labor Council convention in Wenatchee and was adopted. We will be pushing for this along with them during the next legislative session in Olympia. Thank you so much, Shelby, for looking out for your ATU brothers and sisters.

CT to Bring Transdev Everett Jobs In-House

We had a meeting on July 22nd with Community Transit (CT) regarding the service change coming September 14th. Our commuter work is evaporating due to the arrival of light rail at Lynnwood City Center. We have 135 employees at Transdev Everett that will have their work rerouted to CT local routes. The agreement to have contracted work operate CT’s commuter work has been in place since 1988 with decisions already made on what can and cannot be done with that work. This is our work and our employees. This decision CT made without consulting with the union impacts working conditions and we have a right to bargain those conditions. After advisement, President Julien filed a comprehensive grievance on the changes to service. We have specific language covered in Article 33 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between Community Transit and ATU1576. CT failed to give us notice and failed to bargain any of the changes. They committed a 13C violation and committed an unfair labor practice. 

On August 1st President Julien sent out a letter to Transdev Everett and Community Transit members responding to a memo that CT’s CEO, Ric Ilgenfritz put out on the decision to bring the contracted commuter service in-house by the expiration of the revenue agreement in 2026. This will be Community Transit’s biggest project due to light rail and obviously creates huge changes for both Transdev Everett members as well as Community Transit members. How will this look? Though there are currently more questions than answers, CT representatives and ATU Officers were at the Transdev Everett property on August 14th to meet with members and share what we know so far. President Julien, Vice President Perkins, Financial Secretary/Treasurer Thompson, Shop Steward and Negotiations Committee member Gretchen Palmer as well as Executive Board Officer Steve Becker were there. CT’s Director of Maintenance Mike Swehla is leading this project for CT and was present at the site visit as well as Transdev’s General Manager, Michael Winters. We are in the beginning stages of a major change, and though we do not have all the answers regarding how this process will unfold, we will be working with CT for the next 6-9 months getting all that information in order. Members brought forward many questions and we compiled those questions and reassured members that our priority is to bring jobs over and make it as seamless as possible. Seniority is a question that is uppermost. We have clear contract language on how seniority is established, and it is based on your tenure with that agency, any proposed change to the seniority language would be brought forth as a separate vote of the CT membership. We are currently consulting with our attorneys and attending scheduled meetings with CT to get the information we will need to make informed decisions going forward. ATU is working to schedule a property meeting at the CT base, with ATU leadership and Mike Swehla present to answer questions and discuss where the process is at. More information about the date and time will be posted. 

CT Ride Store and CIS 

CT notified us back in May that they were going to combine the Sales & Distribution Specialist classifications (RideStore) with the Customer Information Specialists (CIS) classifications, and they were going to do it by September to coincide with the opening of the new Ride Store and Light Rail at Lynnwood City Center Station (LCCS). President Julien responded with a demand to enter into both decisional and impact bargaining and set to work meeting with both CIS and RideStore members to hear their concerns and document their current responsibilities along with CT’s written job descriptions for each department. We asked the members to choose a representative for each of their groups. RideStore chose Eric Adams and CIS chose Danny Love. President Julien, Vice President Perkins visited both the RideStore, located at Ash Way, and the CIS offices at the Merrill Creek Operations base to observe the work that both departments currently perform. Community Transit is claiming there is an 80% overlap in duties. That was not what we observed. Although their pay scales are close, the difference in responsibilities and workload is totally different. Since then, CT has postponed their proposed timeline to combine departments to November/December, with the intention to move forward with Saturday service for Ride Store, coinciding with the opening of Light Rail. Combining the departments cannot be implemented by CT prior to reaching an agreement with the union. 

CT Blue Line recovery time

We have received complaints that recovery time for the Blue Line between the times of 11:00am and 7:00pm is grossly inadequate and that drivers are not taking their required breaks. First, it is imperative that breaks are taken. Washington State labor laws REQUIRE a 10-minute break for every 4 hours worked. Neither the agency nor the worker may waive their right to a rest period. Second, if a break is missed or only partially taken, operators can notify dispatch and put in for missed break time on the exception log, to be paid at the overtime rate. Third, at the August Labor/Management meeting this issue of shrinking recovery time was brought up and a committee was created to investigate. We provided Ariel Piedmont, the Manager of Environmental Health and Safety, with bid runcards for those time periods. Ariel committed to gather data on actual arrival times and compare them to scheduled arrival times at each of the terminals and report back at the next Labor Management meeting. We also discussed the issue of safety surrounding inadequate recovery times including rushing (which leads to accidents), stress (added physical and mental pressure that leads to illness), a decrease in job satisfaction, and poor customer service. For more information on employee breaks, look up RCW 49.12, WAC 296-126-092 and your SOP 3.16.

CT Seniority Lists

The Officers met on Tuesday, August 6th, with the Seniority Committee (Bruce Kurjiaka, Jas Baines, Rise Gamble) to discuss progress on the Seniority List Options. Recording Secretary Kim Meliza explained, as she passed out the updated proposals, that she was able to sort first by hire date into the classification to find class grouping, then by application date and time stamp for seniority within that class. The problem with the last proposal was that the second sort was based on current seniority instead of original seniority within their class. Now that we have that fixed, we are in the process of double-checking hire date history for those members who would move up in seniority based on the option selected. Kim has created a new spreadsheet to document the changes in status as she goes through the list. 

Initiative 2117

I-2117 will repeal the Climate Commitment Act (CCA), a cap-and-trade law that was passed in 2021 to reduce the impact of climate change and poor air quality and will prohibit the state from ever enacting a new one. It is being funded by billionaire hedge fund investor, Brian Heywood. If passed, I-2117 will strip billions in investment from community priorities in every county – like clean air and water, fish habitat, preventing wildfires and transportation funding that will put transit service, ferries and road projects across Washington at risk and worsen traffic conditions. Specifically at Community Transit it would affect the Silver and Gold Line funding as well as the Green Line Extension. At Island Transit it would directly affect the Terry’s Corner staffing facility project as well as the Zero Emission Vehicle program. We are still waiting for a clearer picture of how this initiative will affect jobs. Go to https://riskofrepeal.cleanprosperousinstitute.org for the interactive map of the whole state and learn about the projects and programs affected statewide.

Our Financial Secretary/Treasurer (FST), Dave Thompson, has volunteered to be the chair of the Washington State Amalgamated Transit Union Legislative Council’s (ATULC) NO on 2117 campaign. The ATULC has donated $2500 to the state “NO on 2117” group outside the ATU and quite a few donors have already raised $15 million. The Washington State Labor Council (WSLC) has endorsed the NO on 2117 campaign. The Snohomish County Island County Labor Council (SCICLC) has come out in opposition to it as well.  There will be more to come on this between now and November 5th. FST Thompson will organize with our interested members to get that campaign off the ground. If you wish to help fight this, please get in touch with Dave at the union office or by email.

COPE:

By law, union dues cannot be used to fund political campaigns, but ATU members can contribute to COPE (Committee on Political Education), our political action committee to help pass pro-transit, pro-transit worker legislation that will help put money in our pockets and help keep us safe. When other workers were being laid off during the pandemic, politicians supported by ATU’s COPE injected $70 billion into transit programs which saved many jobs and kept transit agencies running. With as little as a $1/month, your contributions to COPE can make a significant difference. Contact FST Thompson at 425-259-4544 to request a COPE contribution form.

Shop Stewards: 

Our ATU1576 shop stewards do a phenomenal job. At last month’s Community Transit Labor Management meeting, Transportation Assistant Manager Caton Randolph gave a shout out to the Shop Stewards. She said “they are doing a good job of coaching operators, whether it’s for an investigatory meeting or to advise them on other matters. It is greatly appreciated.” That was nice to hear, and so well deserved. ATU1576 currently has 44 Shop Stewards and over 800 members. Shop Stewards are the first line of defense against unfair disciplineThey are also leaders, and they keep the union moving forward. They make unity happen, and this unity ensures that the local remains as strong, efficient and as fair as possible. They are organizers. They work for 100% active union membership. They encourage members to participate and nonmembers to learn more about what the union is doing that might be of interest to them. They are problem solvers. They serve all members equally and fairly. They are wise enough to know they don’t know everything and smart enough to know where you can go to get information they don’t have. They are educators and communicators. As officials closest to the membership, they are responsible for keeping them informed about activities, policies and meetings. And they are activists and work for improved labor and social legislation. We heart our Shop Stewards. Please consider signing up next year. Qualifications for the 1-year term are members in good standing, adherence to the code of conduct in the ATU1576 Bylaws, attendance at a Shop Steward Training workshop within the last 2 years and approval of the Executive Board.

Big Thank You’s!

  • CT Coach Operators Matt Chomjak and Tadesse Yeglatu participated in the 2024 International Bus Rodeo where Matt won second place.
  • CT Coach Operator William Lacey helped during the Motel 6 standoff on July 31st where he kept his coach at Mariner Park & Ride to provide temporary shelter. 
  • CT Coach Operator Chris Facey attended the National Night Out along with some of the Transit Security Officers. 

If you hear about other members going out of their way to support our community and transportation causes, please send me an email at ATU1576recsec@atu1576.org     - Kim Meliza