July 2024 Newsletter
Greetings brothers and sisters,
I am excited to bring you my first publication of the ATU1576 monthly newsletter. Guess what? It’s a lot harder than I thought it would be. Not to make excuses, but this office is in constant buzz. I have been busy learning my new responsibilities as the Recording Secretary as time permits between numerous more urgent matters. For those of you who don’t know, we now have about 700 members between 5 properties. Community Transit is our largest property. We also represent members at Island Transit, Transdev Para, Transdev Everett, and Transdev Lakewood. My desire is to communicate the hot topics, the warm and fuzzy stories, the good, the bad and the ugly labor/agency situations. To assist in a timely newsletter, we thought it was time to bring it into the 21st century by having the newsletter posted on our website ATU1576.org. If you want to be notified when the next posting occurs, text “ATU1576” to 47400 and you will be added to our text messaging group to receive updates on lots of important stuffs.
To get the most recent news, be sure to attend the next Charter Meeting at your nearest location. Check your union bulletin boards or the calendar on our website for dates, times and locations. Additionally, I would love to hear from you. If you have a question, a complaint, a celebration or an article you would like to submit, please email it to me at atu1576recsec@atu1576.org.
-Your Recording Secretary, Kim Meliza
Local Audit Update:
In January I was contacted by the U.S. Dept. of Labor. Our local had been selected for a random audit. We were due. Our last random audit was over 10 years ago. There was a long list of documents. Vice President Perkins and I worked together to gather all the information requested. In addition to financial records, they wanted meeting minutes, contracts, insurance policies, and membership enrollment forms.
The intake interview was held in February, and Jennifer Scott, auditor, took possession of the requested documentation. She remarked how organized everything was. Last month we met with her again for the exit interview. That meeting took 13 minutes, and she marked some areas for improvement but stated she always finds something to mention. Overall, she was very happy with what she saw, and used the term “superb” when describing our record keeping.
– Financial Secretary/Treasurer, Dave Thompson
Mentorship Program:
On April 25th, International ATU Director of Apprenticeships and Workforce Development Jamaine Gibson, met with us in President Julien’s office to present a phenomenal program for the ATU as well as agencies, where a 1st year employee is partnered with a mentor. A mentor is an experienced member of the union who is tenured. Agencies love this program because the metrics for that 1st year are phenomenal. A one-year trial compared those who were involved in mentorship programs with those who weren’t and showed hard evidence the program was effective in increasing employee retention and job satisfaction, reducing disciplinary issues and promoting a more supportive work environment. Information on the mentorship program has been sent to Community Transit and Island Transit. Community Transit has agreed to a presentation from the International on the program. We are waiting to hear back from Island Transit. There is much more to come on this exciting topic.
Island Transit Shake-Up:
Big changes are happening at Island Transit after Executive Director Todd Morrow and Administrative and Human Resources Manager Robyn Goldring were terminated from employment due to controversy over secretive raise. We have established communication with the interim Human Resources Manager, Melanie Bacon and we are working on instituting the cooperative efforts outlined in the labor agreement. We are strongly committed to this participative work agreement as a means of promoting strong labor/management relations necessary to provide a workplace that expands the opportunity for individuals to share in the success of the company. Island Transit failed to provide proper notification to attend Board of Director’s meetings to our Labor Representative, Lance Norton, as they are required by law to do. Our attorney sent a letter to Island Transit demanding that they follow the law in giving our Labor Representative notice of all meetings he is entitled to attend. While the new leadership at Island Transit is being established, we expect that public comment times are correctly posted and adhered to; safety concerns are taken seriously at regularly scheduled safety meetings; and there will be a change from the punitive culture that motivated the employees at Island Transit to organize into our local, to one that fosters partnership, trust, understanding and communication.
Community Transit Seniority Options:
For over 10 years, members have requested a solution to losing seniority when moving from full-time status to part-time status within the classification of Coach Operator at Community Transit. Last year, former President Custer, then Vice-President Julien, then Recording Secretary Perkins, current Financial Secretary Thompson, and Executive Board Officers Kim Meliza, Eric Sullivan, Rise Gamble, Robert Gaines, Max Lall and Jas Baines as well as former Executive Board Officers David Gibson, Bruce Kurjiaka, and Darrell Johnson spent several hours developing different options for the members to vote on. We have received a lot of help from Community Transit’s HR Specialist, Jade Corley on verifying dates and we were able to create a seniority scenario for each option. We distributed that list and then sent out ballots. Unfortunately, sending out ballots was premature, as we discovered some mistakes in the seniority scenarios. Many of you mailed those ballots. Financial Secretary Dave Thompson, Executive Officers Robert Gaines and Eric Sullivan received those ballots from the post office during the July 23rd Charter Meeting and stamped the date and VOID on each ballot WITHOUT OPENING THEM and bundled them together to archive. Since then, we have gone over the seniority list with a fine-toothed comb and are 95% ready to review with the committee. Once approved, we will print out the new seniority options scenario list for members and receive feedback before ballots are sent.
I appreciate the words of encouragement from those supporting our efforts and those of you who brought mistakes to our attention.
Vice President Perkins and other Local members attended the International Shop Steward Training on March 9th and 10th in Seattle. From that training, Vice President Perkins and President Julien updated our local shop steward training. 29 people attended that training on Saturday May 18th. Make-up training is scheduled for Saturday, August 17th for those on the sign-up list who were unable to attend on May 18th. The approved list of shop stewards for the current 2023-2024 term has been posted on all ATU bulletin boards.
Assault Response Agency Protocol and Union Advocacy:
At the NW Conference this year in Saskatoon, Canada we learned from International Safety Representative Andrew Falotico the startling statistic that across the country, coach operator assaults are up 300% since COVID began. We have seen a dramatic increase in our own local as well, and this doesn’t just affect coach operators. All our employees who work in public facing jobs face the risk of assault.
What happens if one of our members is assaulted or has a serious accident or other emergency? Our members should expect to have in place an agency protocol to support them as they navigate everything that follows, including police and/or agency reports, L&I paperwork, and getting checked out medically among many other things.
Our Local has been advocating for an updated and improved Emergency Response protocol including notifying the union, updating agency processes, tracking the events and debriefing with the union to follow up on changes they can make to improve safety issues and support for members after an event. We have requested that our members be provided with a packet of information that explains the process and provides the information that they will need as they navigate all the legal and medical ramifications of an assault while serving the community under their agency.
Michael Widman is an Operator at Community Transit who was assaulted quite severely on July 3, 2022. On January 6, 2024, Michael wrote a letter to our union about his experience and his proposals for improvement. Michael expressed his dismay and lack of support he felt from many sides and highlighted the failure of the agency to acknowledge and support him through a complex post assault experience. Maria Loaiza was another Operator at Community Transit who was assaulted and attended a meeting at the request of ATU leadership which included the stakeholders from Community Transit’s Transportation, Employee Engagement and Risk departments. As a result of Michael’s letter and the information that Maria shared in that meeting, improved emergency response protocols have been created and implemented. Another important advancement is the Emergency Response Packet created in a joint effort through a Labor Management subcommittee with Executive Board Officer, Rise Gamble, representing the union. Assault Response packets are available from Supervisors and Managers. We sincerely thank you, Michael and Maria, for your bravery, persistence, and determination to turn your experience into real change. We plan to use the progress made at CT to address these same concerns at our other properties. Additionally, working through this process with Michael helped us to see the need for Emergency Response Advocates so President Julien and Executive Officer Gamble are creating a committee of trained members to be called upon to immediately meet up with a members after an emergency event to shepherd them through the process and assist in other areas like getting them something to eat, driving them to the doctor or home, or just sitting with them. This is still very much a work in progress. We look forward to rolling this program out to our other properties.
Job Saved!
President Julien and Vice President Perkins worked with a member at Community Transit that was set to be terminated due to an expired work visa. Unbeknownst to the member who had renewed his visa countless times, the renewal processes this year was severely backlogged and so Community Transit was poised to terminate him to avoid legal ramifications. When Vice President Perkins originally got the call, she immediately started digging for information from the immigration and customs service. Our attorneys found out that Community Transit could legally put him on a leave of absence until his visa was renewed. He is a DACA visa holder (one who was brought to the U.S. as a child by a family member) and they are handled differently than other work visas. Turned out that was our foothold. Our ATU1576 lawyer walked Community Transit’s lawyer through the process. Additionally, all the officers contacted their legislative representatives, and we asked them to use their influence to contact immigration and get his visa sped up. Community Transit agreed to extend the employee’s leave from work by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that would extend his leave of absence, but before the deadline of the MOU, Community Transit terminated the member by mistake. Ultimately the member was fully reinstated without loss of seniority or benefits as his visa was fast-tracked due to the influence of those legislative offices we had contacted.
Community Transit’s Transit Security Officers (TSO):
Almost fully staffed, there are 17 Transit Security Officers with the goal of having presence on all BRT lines in the morning and evening. There are currently 2 shifts (5:00am-3:00pm and 2:00pm-midnight). A social worker is assigned to work alongside TSO’s from 7:00am-3:00pm. The Security Operations Center (SOC) is the hub for monitoring and responding to security situations and can watch in real time or review camera footage and respond to calls and texts. The phone number to reach the SOC is 425-521-5900 for security related issues. ATU1576 is currently in negotiations with Community Transit on the first TSO labor agreement and will be meeting soon with the unit to discuss upcoming mediation.
Northwest Conference:
Last month, President Julien, Vice President Perkins, Financial Secretary Thompson, Recording Secretary Meliza and Community Transit Executive Board Officers Sullivan and Gamble attended this year’s NW Conference in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. There we met with other locals from across the U.S. and Canada to discuss important issues on health and safety as well as transit violence mitigation. Violence against transit workers is continuing to rise throughout all our agencies. Transit workers face issues such as working alone at night, they work in a variety of settings, they have direct contact with the public, they must deal with asking people for the fare, and the community knows there is little police presence and enforcement is not a priority. The good news is that we were trained on the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) that requires agencies to conduct a safety risk assessment related to assaults on transit workers and work jointly with labor and management to incorporate that information into their agency Safety Plan. We now have an important voice in how risk is properly identified, and mitigation strategies are properly documented and submitted. We learned about HR1139, the Transit Worker and Pedestrian Protection Act (when passed) will require transit agencies to work with frontline workers and their unions to implement safety improvements, including: assault mitigation infrastructure and technology, including barriers to prevent driver assaults, de-escalation training for bus drivers, modified bus specifications and retrofits to reduce visibility impairments, driver assistance technology that reduces accidents, and installation of bus driver seating to reduce ergonomic injuries. Lobbying for these important issues is what your voluntary COPE dollars go toward. Consider donating today through payroll deduction by contacting Financial Secretary Thompson. For more information go to atu.org/action/atu-cope.