As I mentioned back in 2006, I live in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. What I may have not said before is that I am a big advocate of public and mass transit.
Currently we are faced with a transit crisis that is starting to border on the absurd. Whilst we are in the midst of an economic meltdown, and coming off of a drastic fuel crisis, it’s time for the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 85 to negotiate its contract with the Transit Board. Now the current proposal up is for 3% per year increase for all employees, but they have to kick in some more for health care.
Ya know, as I head into my own performance review on the 3rd of December, I can only HOPE for ONE year when I get 3% and have to kick a little more in for health care. And this 3% isn’t enough, the Union Leadership is recommending rejecting this proposal and going on strike.
Ok, I’m all for folks wanting some more cash, but the County is in serious, serious debt (a good portion due to irresponsible speding on sports arenas and a shrinking population). We’ve had to institute a 10% poured drink tax as well as extra taxes on rental cars just to get enough cash to get the state matching funds to keep the buses rolling. This is not the time when you go hog-wild for more cash! Over 40% of people who work Downtown depend on Allegheny Counties Port Authority to get to work. Many of them are going to lose their jobs if there is a strike.
As such I believe it is socially irresponsible to at this point to turn down much more than most workers in ANY field are getting to demand more and to hold those jobs hostage because of it. To demand more of a pie that we have to go deeper into debt to fill, and to say that their strike is something ‘for the common man’ and will lead to a ‘triumph of the worker’. Yeah, right. Especially with so many of the lower class then unemployed– yeah they get the full weight of that triumph.
As a matter of full disclosure, I am able to still get to work without the bus— My wife has a car and she can drop me within a mile of where I need to be, and I can walk the rest. I’m very lucky. I’m also very lucky that gas prices have crashed. But there are a lot of us Pittsburghers who aren’t so lucky.
Maybe we should all picket the union headquarters! Their contact infromation is as at the bottom of this post. If you read this and you give a care about the real working class in Pittsburgh (or just the plain ol US of A) call these Union folks and ask that they stop the strike.
1613 Penn Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15222
Phone: 412-281-5583
Fax : 412-281-2627
