Open thread: Will they or won’t they?
Photo by Bhautik Joshi
We don’t want to limit the topics you guys want to talk about in open threads, but this one looms large:
Arbitrator says Muni operators must agree to contract.
So, there are whispers of a slowdown (comedy) or strike (tragedy).
You’ve got opinions. Let ’em rip. Or talk about whatever Muni-related business you’d like.
What’s the point of a slowdown? Nobody would notice.
Heh. The obvious joke, but I love obvious jokes.
I kind of think there’s already some sort of action going on… rush hour buses have been really spotty (at least in Potrero Hill) lately and from NextBus I get the feeling lots of drivers are calling out sick. You know, when NextBus says Arriving, 5 Minutes, 40 Minutes… There’s obviously a (bigger, newer) problem.
The other day it took me 45 minutes to go 1.8 miles on the 22 Fillmore in the middle of the day with very light traffic. And that’s NOT including the time I spent waiting for the bus.
So if they go on strike, I’ll do a lot more walking.
I honestly see no difference in the delays being mentioned than any other regular MUNI day. Anyone who rides the lightrail trains knows they are ROUTINELY late, or will just leave you stuck in a tunnel for 20 minutes (with no explanation), etc. To me, that’s just “MUNI as normal”. Honestly, I hope they feel this in their wallets more and more…because I feel that the vast majority of MUNI workers are giant, worthless, uncaring, no effort producing pieces of doodoo butter.
What if a “strike” or “slowdown” or “sick out” actually lead to reliable, on-time performance? I mean, we’re talking Muni here. It’s got its own parallel universal rules.
So if they did try a slower-down (vs regular slow), or a strike, it would really provide the management team an opportunity to show that they HAVE management skills, or prove that they are as much of the problem as the union/drivers. A strike would be a pain – but would set the drivers up for even LESS support then they already have from the public/users of the system. I’m not sure why they thought that an arbitrator would go in their favor vs the agreed upon contract?!
I must be living in a bizarro world or something. Not only have the drivers I’ve encountered recently been extremely well behaved (by MTA standards, actually doing all of their job by anyone else’s), I agree with Chuck Nevius.
The TWU leadership failed. He thinks they failed to convince the rank and file to accept the current contract. I think that Cabrerra pulled something out of Lum’s playbook (whatever happened to good old Irwin anyhow?): he didn’t even try to sell rank and file on the proposed contract because, like Lum, he was negotiating with management in bad faith. I suspect the “good behaviour” I’m seeing is some sort of ploy to gain rider sympathies when they do strike.
Susan: What management skills? FFS they just axed the head of the MTA without cause, with an extremely generous severance package, and without any sort of contingency plan. If you think it’ll be anything /but/ chaos at the MTA when the contract expires… think again.
I don’t know. Today the metro system was pretty disastrous. Once again I passed at least 5 stalled trains this morning by riding Church-Civic Center, switching to BART, riding to Embarcadero, and switching back to Muni for the ride to 2nd & King. At Embarcadero, I found an inbound LRV laid up without an operator for about four-five minutes until a relief sauntered over. This evening, things seemed to be even more of a mess. ATCS appeared to be down in both directions in the Twin Peaks Tunnel and something was seemingly wrong with an inbound T at Embarcadero.
I honestly have no clue if there was any kind of organized slowdown or just business as usual for the metro rail division. The 37 operator this morning was running late, but was quite nice as usual and made good time. With the SFMTA, it’s pretty much impossible to tell.
I am curious about absentee numbers after the contract vote and the arbitrator’s decision though, not that we’ll see those anytime soon.