That is one of the best-crafted jobs of fact-twisting and selective omission that I have run across during this strike.

It's above the usual writing standards of the UTU. It appears to not have been written by a member of UTU. This wouldn't surprise me. The UTU generally doesn't write very well.

This very much seems written by a UCSC student who is going through that nearly de rigueur Banana Slug rite-of-passage, which is to get involved in some working class vs. evil big government struggle and get some flashy publicity (such as getting arrested at Lockheed). It's sort of like frats doing panty raids in decades gone past; it's sort of initiation phase UCSC students go through, to join the Venerable Loyal Order the Hippies, Chapter 239.

When/if I get some time, maybe I'll pick apart this post that so skillfully misses the forest for the trees.

For now, suffice to say that this saying comes to mind:

"People are so skillful in their ignorance" -- Paramahansa Yogananda.

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Understand this: The METRO board is not made up of a bunch of boogie/men and women. They receive way less than the drivers receive when compared to the national averages for their respective positions. They are not playing tricks; they are not playing shell games; they are not conniving, regardless of how much the UTU wishes it were so. They really don't have a lot of money. Honest. I have met some of them.

Wouldn't it be a lot more fun and feel a lot more righteously noble to be facing down a genuinely evil governmental empire? Oh, how everyone would admire you for being the brave hippie warrior!

Sadly, alas, the METRO is not the evil governmental empire that you seek. You'll have to look elsewhere. The METRO is not sitting on glaciers of excess money. The METRO is a decidedly unglamorous financially troubled local entity made of ordinary citizens. You've picked the wrong target to use as a foil for becoming a sword-wielding leader of the downtrodden. Go to Lockheed or Nicaragua if you want to feel like a leftist soldier.

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Let's get this very straight, once and for all:

The UTU was IN NO WAY forced to strike (Eyes rolling, hiding a smile!)

Get real!

Forced to strike! No way, baby. CHOSE to strike.

Repeat: CHOSE to strike.

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"Will Strike if Provoked"
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The height of the UTU's being out of touch is that ridiculously antagonistic UTU T-shirt that says "Will strike if provoked" and shows a cobra ready to strike.

What a joke! PROVOKED?! $50k year, $70k with overtime; better pay than NYC drivers; gold-plated perks package; all while the Metro is losing money; all while the county is in a financial crisis; even though there has been raise after raise over the last many years for UTU drivers; even though routes and been cut and fares increased to those LEAST ABLE TO AFFORD IT -- and the UTU is feels PROVOKED?!

Absolutely slapstick! Half of me wants to double over laughing -- except that half of me is sick to my stomach. I am not making this up!

Get a clue, UTU! You guys and gals are so out of touch, it's SCARY. It's entirely your right to be out of touch -- until you leave the minimum wage earners and handicapped on the curb. At that point, I make it my business. And it IS my business, as I am shuttling a number of bus-dependent people to work.

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More ridiculousness
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SC bus drivers get paid way more than fellow bus drivers in cities of the about size of Santa Cruz (About $3/hour higher). And, SC drivers get the fourth highest pay in the nation.

Wait, it gets better. The UTU enjoys the fantastic perks of:

No apprenticeship! No schooling to speak of! No investment required! No competition because the UTU is a monopoly and a union.


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Hey, UTU:

You talk about being of the people, yet you are monopoly and a VERY steel-fisted union. You are in no way "of the people." You get paid way more than the typical worker scraping to get by. If you were of the people, and there was open hiring, you drivers would be be DEAD IN THE WATER, and you know it. You'd never be able to compete. There would be hundreds of better-qualified drivers that would gladly take your jobs for less pay and fewer perks. The pool of long-distance truckers is just one source of better-qualified replacements.

If the UTU is so much for the people, why don't you put an e-mail link on their webpage? The METRO board has easily accessible e-mail links. Who is it that is hiding something? Who is it that has somehting to fear? What's the problem, UTU: Don't want to hear what the people have to say? It's hard to keep your heads in the sand if you hear what people have to say.

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Disrespected?
Huh...?
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Despite having all the remuneration mentioned above, despite having a gold-plated benefits package that nearly ALL the bus passengers would LOVE to have, the UTU chooses to interpret having all of the above as DISRESPECT?!

WOW!

Bizarre.

The drivers felt SO DISRESPECTED that they left THOUSANDS of riders WITH NO WARNING, ON THE CURB, many of them IN WHEELCHAIRS.

Yes, they did. They did exactly that. Handicappers and minimum wage workers were left ON THE CURB and IN WHEELCHAIRS. This really happened.

Now, THAT'S disrespect.

No one forced the UTU to do this, except for perhaps their own egos. The drivers CHOSE to do this because $50k a year, $70k with overtime, and great benefits WASN'T ENOUGH.

UTU, you, and you alone, CHOSE to turn down a great offer. YOU have chosen to cause hardship to 23,000 passengers because $50k and fantastic overtime opportunities and great benefits, and one of the best retirement packages (PERS) is NOT ENOUGH for you. You SOLD OUT the poor and handicapped because you CHOSE (CHOSE!) to feel disrespected and chose to want yet MORE, way more than your ridership earns.

The only provoking and massive disrespecting came from the UTU.

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Paper Tiger Rallies
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The UTU put together a rally with students who are massively subsidized by the State of California (by going to UCSC). To build a psuedo-sense of solidarity, the UTU gathered around them a crowd composed largely of government-subsidized near-children. These students, who are in many cases kept afloat by mommy and daddy's checkbooks and by scholarships and citizen-provided financial aid, have little-to-no credibility with regards to soberly evaluating economic issues. These are not people with a mature grip on economic reality. This is not to "dis" them; it is just a fact that one will seldom see an 18-22 year-old college kid with a good grip on how money works.

The UTU couldn't get in any appreciable numbers REAL WAGE EARNERS who work REAL JOBS that aren't government subsidized to show up to back them. All they could get were people who slop at the public trough, like the UTU.

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WE HAVE SOLIDARITY!
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Few care about your solidarity. In fact, UTU, you shouldn't care about solidarity, either, if you know what's good for you. A lot of good solidarity is doing your drivers as they slowly wither away financially receiving $600 a week from their strike fund - because THEY CHOSE (and no one else) to strike.

Just love that solidarity. It's really doing a lot for you.

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UTU, there is a solution...
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C'mon, UTU, just own up to the fact that this strike was a big mistake, and slip back behind the wheel of one of the cushiest and best-paid jobs most of you could ever hope for. Thank the taxpayers for valuing so much that they pay you better than NYC bus driver. They really DO VALUE YOU, to the point that they are paying you more money, and way better retirement benefits than they, themselves, receive, in many cases.

If you think that is disrespect, I fear that their may be no hope for you. Certainly, if you persist in calling your incredible pay for unskilled monopolized labor "disrespect" I doubt there will ever be much sympathy for you.

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A closing tip:
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If this job is really so horrible, and you feel so disrespected, why not get another job?

Repeat: Why not get another job? C'mon , now answer the question. Why not?

Why sit there and suffer and be disrespected by the mean evil METRO?

Why not go to school? Why not start a business? Why not get a different life?

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Could it be that...?
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Could it be that many of you have become too set in your ways, and maybe, er, lazy...? Could it be that you've become too cozy in your very-well-paid job?

Be honest, now.