CTA "L" Operators Vote In Favor Of Strike

[sw4400]

This could have major ramifications if you rely on rail service to get you from Point "A" to Point "B". Link.

***At time of posting, no date is set.... but will be put here when strike will occur if no contract is ratified and voted on***

[Busjack]

2 hours ago, sw4400 said:

This could have major ramifications if you rely on rail service to get you from Point "A" to Point "B". Link.

***At time of posting, no date is set.... but will be put here when strike will occur if no contract is ratified and voted on***

The article indicates that there are a lot of contingencies before there actually could be a strike. First, there is the implication that they have to go through arbitration first. The other unstated thing is that 98% of 33% is not a majority of the union, which I assume is necessary to call a strike. Laura Podesta didn't ask why 2/3rds didn't vote if the membership is so aggrieved.

Looks like the union was trying to get some publicity to instill fear to get some leverage. Not much different than when Local 241 said they would call a strike if the 2008 RTA legislation didn't pass, and Huberman stood there with the "wink, wink, you better not."

[BusHunter]

I thought I read somewhere they couldnt strike unless that was the mta.

Would it be too ridiculous to have bus substitution at key points? Maybe even skip stops like have an ohare shuttle that stops only at jeff and logan square clark lake etc.

[Busjack]

45 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

I thought I read somewhere they couldnt strike unless that was the mta.

At the time I mentioned above, Huberman said it, but that must have been based on his police experience, as the only ones barred by the Illinois Public Labor Relations Act are public safety officers such as police, fire, paramedics, and security employees (5 ILCS 315/14). That wouldn't apply to CTA (at least not operators). Section 17 provides a right to strike, but has conditions on it, one of which is "the collective bargaining agreement between the public employer and the public employees, if any, has expired, or such collective bargaining agreement does not prohibit the strike." The article implies that the interest arbitration portion of the agreement survives, even if the agreement itself has expired (obviously, the agreement survives for some purposes, as employees are still being paid). The statements by the CTA spokesperson that a strike at this point is illegal are based on the agreement. Note that the ATU had a policy of arbitration well before CTA's time, and previous disputes with Local 241 were settled as part of the arbitration or before it.

45 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

Would it be too ridiculous to have bus substitution

Maybe not for management, but sister local 241 might then have a sympathy strike or boycott. That, of course, depends on whether it would be legal to have one, and Section 17 indicates that it might not. However, it might have some power to sanction the substitute drivers (they would be scabs, just as the replacement football players were during a strike).

 

[BusHunter]

Regardless if they did a bus substitution they could only do certain lines as they dont have the buses to do it all. Probably they would have to have regional service like bring back the Washington Express for the whole west side or do a dan ryan express for the south side. They have alot of lsd service that could replace the north side red line but north of hollywood they would need to implement a skip stop #147, ala #J14 Dont know why they dont do this already as the #147 especially north of devon has too many stops. They could do most of the brown line if they had some type of #145 service that used to go to Damen but they wouldnt be serving roscoe village. Maybe they could route down clark or southport but that would be slower. Someone would have no service but maybe tweaking the #201  or #205 a little could serve evanston. Probably the yellow is out. They always have #54a and #97. A #99M, #62x hybrid could serve archer areas. It would be rough though.

[BusHunter]

According to ABC 7 News, they are still saying the union does not have the right to strike according to the current contract the union has drawn up. So far the consensus is that this is a publicity stunt by the union.

http://abc7chicago.com/traffic/cta-train-operators-vote-in-favor-of-strike/2201349/

[sw4400]

16 hours ago, BusHunter said:

According to ABC 7 News, they are still saying the union does not have the right to strike according to the current contract the union has drawn up. So far the consensus is that this is a publicity stunt by the union.

http://abc7chicago.com/traffic/cta-train-operators-vote-in-favor-of-strike/2201349/

Strike threat aside..... they could do things to cause issues. Stage slowdowns in rail service, maybe even do a "make believe" Rail Alert to stop service and tell people to leave the train at a station and after they leave, they pull away "Not In Service" and leave a train full of passengers stuck on the platform to wait for the next train.

Little things they can get away with. They could tell the Rail Supervisor that a mechanical condition caused a failure on the train(complete lie), but rectified itself. And the Union will stand by the employee who will no doubt be facing severe disciplinary action for this, since they are forcing the CTA to come up with a contract for the Rail Operators, who have been without one for 18+ months now.

[Busjack]

41 minutes ago, sw4400 said:

Little things they can get away with.

Not really. There could be an injunction (punishable by contempt). They also could be fired.

 

41 minutes ago, sw4400 said:

And the Union will stand by the employee who will no doubt be facing severe disciplinary action for this

After CTA cracked down on discipline (announced by Claypool and apparently still followed by Carter) this doesn't appear too likely. Union officials who engage in illegal activity would be disciplined by the International (ask Darrell Jefferson).

Basically you are saying some rail operator wants to risk $32.82/hour plus benefits for the sake of the union's position before an arbitrator.

Also, don't buy the 18 month business. They are working under the preexisting contract. They are still getting paid. CTA has not imposed a final offer on them.

But does this explain why the woman behind the fish counter at the Jewel nearest to me doesn't want to sell fish?

[BusHunter]

5 hours ago, sw4400 said:

Strike threat aside..... they could do things to cause issues. Stage slowdowns in rail service, maybe even do a "make believe" Rail Alert to stop service and tell people to leave the train at a station and after they leave, they pull away "Not In Service" and leave a train full of passengers stuck on the platform to wait for the next train.

Little things they can get away with. They could tell the Rail Supervisor that a mechanical condition caused a failure on the train(complete lie), but rectified itself. And the Union will stand by the employee who will no doubt be facing severe disciplinary action for this, since they are forcing the CTA to come up with a contract for the Rail Operators, who have been without one for 18+ months now.

Yes they could do a few things, but then again they are risking disciplinary action. Really they would have to be supported by the union. They could have a "sick out" day where everyone calls off for a day or do slowdowns in service both of which have been done before here in the city. the thing is with those is not everyone participates and you basically have 10-20 percent doing it, mostly the disgruntled workers. Basically if the pay is good, which it is, the workers will be more happy than disgruntled. If the pay was poor and work conditions poor then you would have a high percentage of disgruntled workers.

I know myself, the pay scale is good, there are college grads not making what CTA employees make. For not going to college, it's about the best you can do. Why risk it. 60K a year is not bad and if you work ot you can make more than that. Where can you get a job that pays that and not be a college grad?

[Busjack]

13 hours ago, BusHunter said:

They could have a "sick out" day where everyone calls off for a day

Basically any union gets one day and then an injunction is slapped on it and the participating members. County jail workers tried it and got disciplined, if IIRC. The issue for your conspirators is if there was concerted action in violation of the contract.

[BusHunter]

4 hours ago, Busjack said:

Basically any union gets one day and then an injunction is slapped on it and the participating members. County jail workers tried it and got disciplined, if IIRC. The issue for your conspirators is if there was concerted action in violation of the contract.

I believe on one of my youtube videos, I have footage of when Pace tried a sick out. (Unless I didnt upload it)  so it has been done here before.

[Busjack]

2 hours ago, BusHunter said:

I believe on one of my youtube videos, I have footage of when Pace tried a sick out. (Unless I didnt upload it)  so it has been done here before.

I think there was one at NW, but it didn't go down well.

[Busjack]

20 minutes ago, Busjack said:

I think there was one at NW, but it didn't go down well.

Googlng it comes back to the discussion here. Actually, after rehashing the IPLRA, it appeared at the time that it was a legitimate strike.

That topic also discussed threats of a job action by ATU Local 308, so that isn't a new idea to them.

[jajuan]

On 7/10/2017 at 1:11 PM, Busjack said:

The article indicates that there are a lot of contingencies before there actually could be a strike. First, there is the implication that they have to go through arbitration first. The other unstated thing is that 98% of 33% is not a majority of the union, which I assume is necessary to call a strike. Laura Podesta didn't ask why 2/3rds didn't vote if the membership is so aggrieved.

Looks like the union was trying to get some publicity to instill fear to get some leverage. Not much different than when Local 241 said they would call a strike if the 2008 RTA legislation didn't pass, and Huberman stood there with the "wink, wink, you better not."

When I saw the headline, it definitely caught my attention enough to look into the story. But that 98% of 33% of members voting for the authorization immediately caught my eye as well and I came to the conclusion that everyone else did and CTA management stated that this was more about the union looking to get publicity to spook some folks and put pressure on management though I'm pretty sure that latter part failed given management's response to it. At any rate, for us everyday passengers things will be business as usual since clearly just shy of a third of union members of can't legitimately authorize a strike.