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I love how people that don't work for nyc transit think they know the work rules of the job first off to mira NO its not the bus operators job to blow there horn at cars that are parked in bus stops. Transit rules are that WE DO NOT engage the public we don't have any weapons to protect ourselves. This is why you have those nypd traffic cops and regular officers the fine for parking in bus stops is 115. but not being raciest but one of the problems is that I noticed that in high minority areas cops are all over writing tickets have check points set up. I drive the bus in certaint white naborhoods and people are parked all over bus stops driving at night with no head lights driving drunk and not a cop in site. again the job for removing cars from bus stops is not our job that is for the NYPD traffic agents and DOT its not the bus operators job we are simply told if there is a car in the bus stop we are to pull parallel to the bus stop and kneel the bus and let the passengers off and to board thank you.

The issue is about the Contract Negotiations ... Management (i.e. the State) Wants "Zero's" in each WITH each union member to PAY AN EXTRA $500/ MONTH for Health insurance.
I Say - We Want A PAY RAISE DOUBLING OUR HOURLY RATE WITH FULL COVERAGE INCLUDING DENTAL.
Let The Negotiations Begin.

One of the most funniest things is that people think that everytime the MTA says they are raising fairs that the Money is going to the bus operator or the trains or cleaners not so, people really are feeding into the media saying that the MTA is cash strapped lol if so how did they lay off all those workers before the summer and then after the summer bring back those workers and are hiring new employees as we speak we have so many new bus operators that are starting now and more in training. Do you people looking in notice the new buses on the road? new trains on the F train and E train and the new M line the R160 how are these things paid for??? last point I just seen on cnn fanny may and freddy mack asking for more millions of bail out but yet soon as they got bailouts before they are giving out bounuses if you are in trouble how are you giving out bonuses ?? same in MTA everyone talks about the front line workers but do people have any idea how many bonus are giving out to mta manegment?? Noone wants to talk about that thats funny but ofcourse lash out against the union workers thats what the media wants and the CEOs and managers want so they can keep making there billions and millions and hide behind the low end workers . last point everyone talking about penison but do people realize that the pension is coming out of our own checks its not free money it comes out of our checks just like regular taxes if you dont pay into it then you will not have any pension at the end of your career so people need to really remember that its NOT FREE MONEY IT COMES OUT OF THE WORKERS OWN PAY CHECK and for all the people complaining Go get a transit JOb they are always hiring for somthing despite they always crying broke and the come on the other side of the fence and see if it is as easy as it looks.

@bernie - TWU workforce down 2% ridership up 11% = productivity. TWU'ers are the most productive transit workers in the nation -(lots of data on the mostly as cost per trip).

@TAM TWU wants bus partitions - nothing else works.

@bernie - seems hard to be so angry

i feel just because they economy is bad and now everything should fall wages should not fall all around the city because other jobs are falling especially if the mta ridership is the same or has increased if the mta is taking the same amount of riders or even more where is the need to cut back ex chairman sanders said his first couple of months on the job trains and buses are running extremely efficient so you are seeing a few bad drivers and the train booths are closed so those bad apples signed their own pink slips support others to get better waged and benefit are you will set a trend and then all employers will have to give competing wages so if we don't try to bring everyone down with us we will show it can be down if you take 30,000 employees and dont let them get an increase with the rising standard of living thats 30,000 nyers who can spend that money in ny . and you will see your restaurants loosing business your department stores loosing sales your car dealer ships loosing sales and really if that mta employee doesn't make more money how will that contractor get work if that mta employee decides to hold off on work on his home its an economy its a system is one makes more money we all make money

Everyone coming down on transit workers but the truth is there is wasteful spending in all company's not just mta all company's let's talk about these company's that got children in india making soccer balls by hand paying them 50cent per day if that WHERE IS ALL THE PEOPLE CRYING FOR THEM??? THIS WHOLE COUNTRY IS GOING DOWN THE TUBES THIS WASTE IS SOOO MUCH BIGGER THAN ANYONE COMPANY OR UNION. Yes you have some bad transit workers just like you have bad cops bad fire fighters bad sanitation bad city officals mayors sending nude pics of himself LISTEN NOONE IS PERFECT WHEN PEOPLE REALIZE THAT ...... SO STOP POINTING FINGERS AT TWU LIKE THEY ARE THE ONLY PROBLEM IN NY.

All you people are looking in from the outside, bus drivers risk their lives everyday if you was in that seat all day you would see this isn't a easy job. We have to protect ourselves from people all day from the passengers to the people out side the bus that cut buses off all day in order to make a right turn. Who doesn't want to grow from their job, the cost of living doesn't stop raising so why shouldn't we be intitled to a raise I'm sure management aren't taking cuts. Twu is only asking for what is right, there's no one here that wouldn't want the same.

M T A Make Travel Arduous! Years ago NYC reported MTA faults. Called station: compared to scourge of SEPTA in Philadelphia , abomination of "Charm City" BAltimore, this might be next best thing to sliced bread! since? Talk about rating US a ninth world country! QOL? Deterioration since Giuliani : drivers abuse riders verbally/phyiscally, speed (toppling riders even sitting), run lights, refuse to answer questions, stop 4-5 feet from curbs(unobstructed - the obstructed is also a problem - desperately need fixing!) , impeding ongoing traffic, violating ADA. Refuse requests for assistance with lift , saying only for wheelchairs. WHO ARE THEY TO SAY ONLY DISABILITY IS ONE THAT SEEKS ACCOMMODATION VIA WHEELCHAIR? HOW MANY TREES SACRIFICED FOR MTA MAPS SAYING, ANYONE UNABLE TO BOARD STAIRS, ENTITLED TO USE LIFT???? IF DOJ AND THE AG (What are lines of AUTHORITY/RESPONSIBILITY - IF THE mta IS A sTATE AGENCY HIRED BY THE CITY TO PROVIDE SERVIcE TO CITIZENS OF nyc - and nY stATE!! - to whom to complain? It's the fox in the hen house!) do not do their job, if we "sic" NRDC on them for wasting precious resources,will THAT do it? (like convicting Al Capone on tax evasion!! )

For new "chair"-man? Get up OFF the chair, go out into the field, with cadre of highschool students doing community service: spend a day "mapping" system: conditions of stops(sidewalks in horrific disrepair!), photograph buses not pulling in and forcing people with assistive devices to struggle; people illegally PARKED; buses NOT "horning" CARS out of STOP but "Beeping" each other, ADDING noise pollution; check condition buses LEAVE depot - then driver suddenly tells you the "lift NOTworking" - or he can't "hurt" his back to bend over and pull the loop! and pulls off! (BTW, much of this is racial: what happens when you go from the 'back of the bus" to the driver's seat??!) Haven't even discussed the disgusting environments INSIDE the buses: When did buses become restaurants? Bringing hot food and eating on the bus brings on migraines - have had to leave and actually go to ER! And the TRAsh????? Use findings to create campaign to fix.

Elevator outtages!! AT least toll-free hotline restored(though "One MTA, One Number" on the Metro cards is reminiscent of "Ein Fuhrer, Ein Volk!";)- but IT MUST BE UPDATED every few hours! Two weeks ago got list 6 a,m (outrageous numbers out of service every day - and some FOR DAYS at a time!!!) - and "mine" (125th) was NOT on it. Proceeded from Bronx, to arrive a 125 and find it OOS, - had to go to GCT - on a hope and prayer that elevator working there, get UP OUT OF THE SYSTEM, come all the way back uptown by BUS for appointment at Mt Sinai --FOR A STRESS-DRIVEN (MTA_DRIVEN!!!!!) disease!

December 3 - Day of Disabled. MTA to lead the way.

@Jan from Plainfield NJ:

Let me correct you...
Private contracters get higher hourly wages, but they aren't passed to the employees doing the work. In fact, many private contractor laborers are paid LESS than their public employee counterparts. Most of the contracted fees are pocketed by the owners and executives that run those private firms.

I support protecting the unions, however as a freelance worker, I have had to sacrifice a lot due to the down turn in the economy. I don't get paid as much when there is less work. Why should they, or anyone else for that matter be different...even the 1%?When they said outside contractors get paid more, they didn't mention that most likely those people work for themselves and have to pay lots of other costs like insurance, etc, which comes out of those "higher" wages...when it is boiled down, they probably make similar wages.

It is unfair to say that trades are paid less than the trades on the outside. I am a carpenter (self employed) and I get this all the time about my labor rate (which I no longer disclose). One must consider benefits as well and wage and as for me, who charges what some consider a lot, I also pay my own vacation, medical, dental, etc, etc. My biggest concern about what the caller said is that he is not acknowledging that he has probably not suffered a lay off from the MTA in his entire work history with them where as outside trades suffer lay offs all the time, some almost annually. So he must consider the job security as part of his compensation package. I agree that we must take care of our service workers in this city, but I wish they would stop pointing around with a grass is always greener attitude; its not.

Who's gonna pay? The riders. The riders are suffering from the downturn, facing wage freezes in the private sector and unemployment, but the TWU wants a pay RAISE?

I understand the TWU has to look out for themselves, but that's part of the problem. Everyone wants a bigger piece of the pie but who's gonna pay for it? Ordinary riders like us are. NY is the world's capital, but we've got a third world transit system cause all the money goes into, what did the speaker say, "better pensions and job security"...

The subways would be cleaner if they hired private contractors. They could probably hire private security for less than we're paying people to sit in a token booth doing nothing. And why can't we have more advanced trains that drive themselves like in France?

Tell John a lot of us still have memories and remember when the transit workers were horrible lazy useless people sleeping in the booths, and then held the city hostage during the holiday season for a week. I am still waiting for the day they are all replaced. I'll never trust the TWU again.

A union member who called in said the contract workers get $15 an hour more than union workers, and your guest said the discrepancy is closer to $30 an hour. Contract workers get a higher hourly wage because they don't have a pension, paid holidays, or employer-provided health insurance. They need
to buy their own very costly health
insurance, if they can get it at all. It's misleading to look at hourly rate only, we should look at total compensation.

These people deserve HAZARD pay!!

I wish you would discuss the MTA's "cost-cutting czar" brought in about 2 years ago: Diana Jones Ritter, the former head of the Office of Persons with Developmental Disabilities, under whom the abuse of the developmentally disabled and rampant financial waste could not be overstated. It is an outrage and a disgrace that such a person has been in charge of the MTA's cost-cutting.

If the MTA denied its workers a wage increase they were scheduled to get & imposed layoffs, weren't they breaking their contract? Did the TWU take this before the NLRB?

What about inflexible work rules, crazy OT and holiday pay, etc that led to huge pension payouts over the years? NY Times did a huge piece in the LIRR pension abuse a few years ago. The work rules are ridiculous. If a train engineer his asked to drive a certain different type of train, he gets paid double- stuff like that. These employees end up being paid a couple hundred thousand a year and then get labeled disabled to make their pensions even bigger. It's a joke.

how millionaires are taxed and the "plight" of the TWU cannot be compared....nice talking point but the TWU screws the working man, the REAL working man on a daily basis so don't pretend to represent working people.
bust this union, NOW

Lemme tell ya..the bus drivers are seriously putting their lives on the line, everyday...my friend's daughter just recently moved back to Brooklyn and a group of kids in a gang boarded the bus, terrorized the passengers and beat up a kid from a rival gang...the bus drivers only defense was to close the doors and call the police AFTER the kids exited the bus! A nightmare for sure.

Has the union proposed any solutions to the assaults on bus drivers, i.e. putting transit police or cameras on the buses, or . . .? Something has to be done about this for the safety of the bus drivers and passengers.

I am a taxpayer and I fully support the TWU. Anyone who is in the 99% who does NOT support the TWU is falling for the old divide-and-rule trick of the 1% elite. We will no longer fight among ourselves-- we will only fight the 1%.

Brian,

I agree that drivers should be protected. however on that same note an number of MTA bus drivers are quite rude and aggressive. Maybe its because of the people they deal with all day. I told a driver of the B9 bus rather politely that he wet me as he pulled up ( Hew drove rather agrresively). His response was "good".

I have seen these drivers rudely talk to riders so in addition to persecuting the attackers the trovers also need to be taught how to deal with riders- customer service- even the unpleasant riders.

as dysfunctional and corrupt as the MTA has been, any real NY'er knows that the TWU is the real cause of the problems. i support and believe in unions but the TWU gives all unions a bad name. overpaid morons making the lives of working ny'ers miserable with their unbelievable lack of work...stretch it out, get the overtime, do anything to avoid getting the job done at our expense.
and the first thing that the MTA should do is eliminate every subway booth job. these people are overpaid, spoiled, arrogant wasters of our money. TWU is the boy who cried wolf.

Great. The bums who fall asleep in their token booths, the gutter-mouths who drive the buses, the no-loads who get paid $20/hr for pretending to push a broom through a subway car, they're supporting the bums in Zuccotti Park, and they're angling for a new contract. More money for nothing, screw the taxpayers for free.

Any negotiations between the MTA and TWU must include improving service & effectively utilizing transit employees. I am sick and tired of waiting 30 minutes for a train with no announcement as to what is going on. It happened again this morning.

I left 2 messages before. They dissapeared? What happened?