Transit Allies
The Newsletter of Chicago’s Rider-Driver Alliance (RDA) Premiere Issue: Fall 2007
We’re not pawns!
A
IMPRUVE-RDA actions win concessions
nother year of
“doomsday.” Some
young $80,000 bu-
reaucrat in a starched
shirt came up with the
word to manipulate us.
We saw the signs at every bus
stop, in every paratransit vehicle,
at every hearing warning us of the
doom, pointing fingers, making us
angry at one another. We refused to
accept the Doomsday notices in the
paratransit vehicles, at bus stops,
on rail trains, in newspapers.
We simply decided that we
were not pawns on a bureaucrat’s
chessboard.
Certainly not Patricia Baxter,
who rolled
out with IM-
PRUVE, the “Why should we have to wait? hold RTA and
RDA Paratran- You don’t ride the bus, we the
sit Committee,
ATU 1028 lead-
do!” —Pat Baxter
ers and drivers, ATU 241 workers,
and students August 25-September
26 to Doomsday meetings, sit-ins,
and media interviews. Not on our backs. The fare
Baxter, who uses a wheelchair
participated in six major actions
with IMPRUVE and RDA. Though
her speech is not always under-
stood, no one had trouble hearing
or understanding her on August 29.
She shouted out her demands after
legislators pushed riders to the
back of the agenda. TV cameras
that were focused on CTA execu-
The Rider-Driver
Alliance is...
We are a fighting al-
tive director Ron Hu-
liance between workers
berman now swung
who serve the public and
toward Patricia.
“Why should we
the community that rides
mass transit and para-
have to wait?!” Her
transit. We are build-
voice was loud and
ing a place where we
labored.
feel comfortable to tell our
Every camera and
stories, get out the facts, and build
legislator was on Baxter as she
unity. This is where passengers and
refused to wait any longer at state
transit workers may work together
hearings on mass transit.
to build the public transportation
“We have been waiting for a
system our community needs.
long time! We want to speak now!”
She was there with her cohorts
at the sit-in at the Regional Transit The RDA’s three
Authority (RTA) when IMPRUVE immediate demands
won more time on the monthly
Stop the cuts. Immediate halt
pass and CTA one-day tickets for
to threatened lay-offs, service
thousands of paratransit riders. She
cuts, and fare hikes. Immediate
was with Dr. Maat and RDA when
restoration to all service already
Maattestified to
cut. Return jobs to any union
workers already laid off.
governor’s
office to their Open the books. No more
word to save back-room deals, false pensions,
paratransit useless paperwork positions,
padded contracts, and unrea-
by restoring the monthly pass.
sonable executive salaries and
The restoration of the pass saved
benefits.
lives and health and well-being of
thousands of paratransit riders who
is already too high. No to fares
would have been unable to get to
and fees aimed at the people
treatment centers and work.
who can afford them least. No
Save the date! to increased taxes for working
people to pay for public transpor-
NEXT RDA MEETING: tation. No to making workers and
Monday, Oct. 22nd, 5:30 p.m. retirees pay for transit agencies’
Jane Addams Hull House Museum mismanagement of their pension
University of Illinois Chicago and healthcare rights.
800 S. Halsted (MC 051)
All Labor Donated
Ask the Driver
“Why do buses bunch?”
Harry, 60, from Windsor Park,
rides the #79 bus. He asks drivers:
“Why are buses always bunching
up? Can’t the drivers do some-
thing about it?”
In a push to privatize public
transit, administrators try to cut
costs by leaving very little time
for the driver to rest or to recover
from unexpected delays. But the
real world doesn’t fit into an office
manager’s computer. If something
minor creates a delay, such as a
train crossing or a defective bus,
it can cause a domino effect of
bunched-up buses.
Drivers are simply told to
follow a run schedule without
“A bargain”?
The lead editorial of the Chica-
go Tribune on September 6, 2007,
entitled “A transit bill breakdown”
argues that, “The agencies really
ought to impose fare hikes anyway.
Riders have a bargain… .”
Tell that to a worker who has
to take two buses and pay $4 cash
each way to work only to make $6
an hour. Tell that to riders who live
on fixed incomes or allowances
from nursing homes and sheltered
living.
The editorial says, “The cam-
paign to reform mass transit has
forced some long overdue changes,
including a changing of the guard
at the CTA… .”
The top-down structure of the
CTA hasn’t changed — ask any
transit worker or rider if they are
part of decision-making. Four of
the seven board of directors are
directly appointed by the mayor
of Chicago. The mayor’s chief of
staff was recently appointed to be
the president of the CTA. Changing
thinking. Unless we are given more
authority on the street, we cannot
try to fix bus bunching without put-
ting our jobs in danger.
To stop bus bunching, we have
to stop cutting corners to save a
few pennies. Instead of laying off
drivers, we should hire enough
workers to provide the service this
city deserves. Forget about multi-
million dollar gadgets and consul-
tants. That doesn’t work. Just give
us clean, reliable and safe buses.
Give drivers, mechanics and bus
servicers enough time and authority
to do our job and we will stop bus
bunching. After all, who knows the
streets better than the people who
actually ride and drive them?
of the faces perhaps, but the same
machine mismanages the CTA.
“…and a hard-fought bargain
with CTA unions to reduce pension
and retiree health benefits.” The
editorial is referring to a five-year
binding arbitrated agreement that
is tied to the latest transit bill in the
house, legislative bill SB572. The
bill calls for “CTA Pension and
Retiree Health Care Reforms.”
When you hear the word “re-
form,” hold onto your wallet. By
reform, the bill means making a
24 year old who starts his or her
career as a bus driver work for 40
years before they can retire. By
What We’ve Done:
• Waged a sit-in to stop the cuts on
paratransit. Won back the monthly
ADA paratransit pass for Septem-
ber and October
• Worked to stop September 16
driver layoffs at CTA, PACE
• Drivers at ATU 241 adopted a
resolution to support rider-driver
unity in honor of Rider-Driver Al-
liance.
Show a Film!
Provide an ADA accessible loca-
tion and a time, and the RDA will
help you screen the film Bus Riders
Union, which tells the exciting
story of the Los Angeles Bus Rid-
ers Union and its daring struggles
for better transit.
We need to hear from you:
publictransit@lvejo.org or
773-762-6991.
that time — considering the way
the buses are not maintained by the
CTA — he or she won’t have any
knee or back left. Reform means
that once that same driver retires,
he or she will have their health care
and pension rights reduced, if they
get any at all. Reform means taking
all of the inflation related raises and
dumping them into a pension fund
out of workers’ control. “Reform”
means taking it out on the backs of
working people.
So this is a bargain? A bargain
for whom?