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| President Bob Bean |

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Weekly & Monthly Information up Dates

VEOLIA PHOENIX DOESN”T EVEN KNOW THEIR OWN CORPORATE CELL PHONE POLICY.
I guess the company is giving out false information in the TREC classes in regards to the Corporate Cell Phone Policy
which goes to show me that neither the Training Department nor the Operations Manager have a clue as to the policy period
yet they are dictating it to the Operators. The policy is pretty clear and easy to understand when it says that the bus must
be stopped and the brake set if using a phone. NOWHERE does it say that you have to be out of your seat, or in the back of
the bus to use it, contrary to what the training department is preaching. The latest new rule from the Training Department
is that the Bus must be shut off and the Operator out of their seat to use a phone. So now they are being hypocrites towards
their own policy that they have preached for years, and that id that we DON”T shut the buses down in Phoenix because of the extreme heat that we endure every year. So now with what the Training
Department is preaching, when you get to your layover point and you have a 30 min. layover with passengers on the bus make
sure that you shut the bus OFF and get your ASS out of the chair as safety Jim says and go for a 30 min walk and talk. I am
pretty sure that it would take about 2 mins before the irate Phone Calls start flooding the QAS Center, and all you can answer
QAS is I am only doing what I was taught and instructed to do in my TREC class.
Here is a letter submitted by a concerned Public Transit Rider
that was forwarded to our office. I think that everyone should read this to see what our tax dollar paid Transit Officials
and their henchmen are up to. This is the kind of CRAP that the public has to put up with from Transit just like we do.
I've read your website
and sent a previous email. So what is Transit doing to save Operator jobs and bus routes for those of us who have no
other transportation? I have been raging at City Council, the Mayor and Transit and they have ignored me until recently.
Now I am having a meeting with Transit to get answers to my questions. I have asked why it is that the Transit-Dependent
(people of color, working poor, elderly, disabled) were sold out and the Transit-Choice (White suburban riders with cars who
use Park N Ride, Express & Rapid buses) lost nothing in this cut back. In fact, Transit and the City ADDED three
new Express bus routes while it cut back all of the urban local routes. Was a Title VI Impact study conducted before
these changes were made? What other alternatives were considered? I have asked how they can justify cut backs
when they have failed to collect fares. Why has the City not installed auxiliary vaults to collect bills and coins that
could not be collected with their lousy new fare boxes? People intentionally use "bad" transit dollars so they can avoid
paying the fare. If they welded an auxiliary vault on those fare boxes, then the City could collect all of those now
lost fares. Is someone available through your Union to talk to me? I am considering a civil rights complaint or
district court lawsuit citing discrimination in the cutbacks. Someone got so upset with my questions that they actually
sent my email to City Council and the Mayor, and Cotton to my employer to try and shut me up and cause me to lose my job.
The Mayor's office was furious when they learned that some coward decided to attack me due to my important questions that
I was asking. I need some help here. I cannot do this alone.
FIRST TRANSIT
Now let’s talk about what is going on out in the
WTF!!!!!!! They are going through operators like I go through socks. There philosophy is that we care about our employees
and we have an open door policy, what a pile of horse crap that is. If they can figure a way to get rid of an operator they
will do it. And it isn’t just here in Phoenix, it is North America wide. We are just recently back from a conference
in Washington DC where I had the opportunity to talk to 30 different locals from both the US and Canada and the stories are
all the same, no matter how they try and disguise their name be it 1st Student, 1st Group or as we know
them 1st Transit. This Company has their glorious 7 DEADLY SINS and they use them to their fullest advantage North
America wide. These are some of the most ASSININE reasons to terminate an employee on a 1st occurrence but they
seem to take great pride in these ASSININE SINS. If an Operator has a PREVENTABLE accident they will throw a GROSS NEGLAGENCE
charge on top of the Preventable to make sure it is a Terminable Offence. Unlike the rest of the Transit Companies that believe
a preventable is a preventable and that’s why we have ARB’S to make final determination. Not in the WTF every
accident is a preventable, even if someone runs a RED LIGHT you are still charged with a preventable accident by 1st
Transits Safety Manager, make a lot of sense??????? Not to me, but it does to 1st Transit. And if they can’t
get you there watch out because they will stack some other wacked out trumped up charge on top to make sure they get you.
A NEW LOW IN THE VALLEY
Do you need a job driving a bus?? Just go to 1st Transit and apply. There is a great shortage
at the WTF because they keep terminating employees, and the latest way for MR. MOORE to do it is by using the probationary language
so that as he puts it “he doesn’t have to deal with either Dana or myself on the issue and this way we won’t
have any reason to take it up with Marc Perla”. Well guess what? Wrong thing to say, we have been pretty quiet about
the WTF but quiet we cannot be any longer. We just got back from Washington DC where one of the heated topics was 1st
Transit and their 7 DEADLY SINS which they are ABUSING NATION WIDE INCLUDING CANADA as our Canadian Brothers and Sisters were
explaining to us as well as all the other Locals throughout the States. 1st Transit seems to think that these 7
Deadly Sins is CARTE BLANCHE to terminate employees which is what they do on a regular basis across the country. In just about
every contract I looked through in Washington there is wording just like ours here that says in ART 8 Sec 7 “If it is
mutually agreed that a situation arises which has unusual circumstances, the parties without setting a precedent may elect
to change past procedure to more fairly judge the employee’s particular case”. Does this happen here or on any
1st property? The answers I got were you have to be JOKING!!!! And once more today at the WTF it happened again
but this time we are using the probationary language to avoid dealing with Dana or Bob on this issue, well guess what? They
will be dealing with DANA, JIM, RICK and BOB on this issue whether they like it or not!!!!!
And to think that the City of Tempe is considering 1st Transit in the bid to become the
new provider. I can already see another low ball bid so that to get a new contract signed we can go to the City of Tempe and
ask them for 1.35 MILLION DOLLARS like we had to do with the City of Phoenix to get a deal at the WTF. And does the City of
Tempe want to have to deal with 300 pissed off drivers that have a contract soon to expire? The 7 Deadly Sins are the most
asinine things I have ever seen in my 32 years in the transportation industry and I am sure that there are a whole lot of
people in the industry that would agree with me. So now that we seem to have a new set of rules to play with by 1st
Transit, I guess it is time for us to be imaginative and come up with a new set of our own. 
COULD THE NEW FARE BOX BE THE REAL REASON FOR THE CITIES SHORTFALL IN MONEY FOR TRANSIT?
After reading an article in the AZ Republic form 11/05/08 titled Bus Fare boxes malfunctioning
it is becoming clearer why the City’s Brain Children are making Service Reductions in Public Transit.
The opening sentence says it ALL “Bus Riders have been scoring FREE trips in the wake of ongoing mechanical problems with new fare boxes on
about 800buses throughout the Valley”. So with all the FREE rides
that are being given out on top of the 12 MILLION DOLLARS that was spent
on this new pile of JUNK no wonder the City has to make SERVICE REDUCTIONS in Public Transit. If you take the 12million Dollars
that was spent on these new headaches and add the cost of all the FREE rides that would add up to approximately the total
cost of Service Reductions the City is going to make by July 1 2009. Once more it looks like Joe Q Public and the taxpayers
have been SCREWED AGAIN!!!! And what is the City’s answer? We will raise the cost of riding by 40% come July, so as
to make it almost impossible for a great majority of people to ride the City’s Transit System. The public should all
write letters to Tom Callow and Debbie Cotton and let them know exactly what they feel about the City’s Transit System
that is falling back into the Stone Age!!!!!
THE PHOENIX TRANSIT SYSTEM SINKS TO AN ALL TIME LOW.
Had a call from a friend over the weekend from the Seattle
area asking just what in the HELL is going on with the Transit System here in Phoenix.
So I went on to explain that the City Managers as well as the Director of Public Transportation just don’t give a DAMN
about the riding Public here in Phoenix. I guess the news
of the IDIOTIC Service reductions has spread across the country already making the City of Phoenix look like a 3rd
class Transit System. Nobody that I have talked to can believe the stupidity of the City Managers and the Director of Transportation
when it comes to these reductions!!!!! With the economy in the toilet, and the public looking for the mass transit system
to get them to and from work, these brain scientists that we have running our Transit System decides to put the screws to
the Public with Service Reductions. Then they add insult to the injury by coming forth with a 40% fare increase proposal,
what a double kick to the nads!!!! Rather than gradually increase fares over the last 10 years like most cities in North America have, these buffoons have left it alone and now need quick cash grab so let’s slam
the public riders with 40% right now. But one will notice that none of the City Managers JOBS are in jeopardy; coincidence????
Another thing the City isn’t telling everyone is that they are calling this a SERVICE SUSPENSION at this time so as
not to have to get rid of any buses. Now they can just park them for the time being. I understand that the Christmas bus will
now roll in December and January as it took a private donation to make this happen, I guess someone in the private sector
still believes in the season as it is quite obvious that the City doesn’t!!!! Maybe it is time that the public boycotts
the Transit System for a week or two, then maybe some of these clowns would get the message!!! I doubt it though as they are
only concerned about there own livelihoods and their paychecks every two weeks. So I guess being the countries 5th
largest city with one of the worst transit systems really doesn’t count for anything. Bellingham Washington which is
a very small town in Northern Washington State has a better Transit System than Phoenix and they have a population of maybe
50,000 people, go figure!! So maybe it is time for the City Officials to start focusing there concerns on the people that
count on transit to make a living rather than what is best for themselves, I hope everyone remembers this when some of them
come up for re-election.
THE COTTON EXPRESS KEEPS ON ROLLING DOWN THE TRACKS WITH
TOM CALLOW AT THE CONTROLS.
Here is the latest City Transit News on how the City plans to shaft the
Public and the late night work force who count on the late night service to get to and from work. Debbie Cotton and Tom Callow now plan to cut Service by the end of December 2008, these cuts will be 500am
service instead of 400am and the last pick ups at night will be 10:00pm, nothing later.
All Saturday Service will now be Sunday Schedules. MV Dial-a-Ride will now ONLY PICK UP ADA
passengers (nothing else), and the Dash Buses will have the last 2 hrs of their runs abolished here real quick. This is all
for December with another 22.5 million in cuts to be made in July 2009.So can someone please tell me how in the hell the City
can claim that they really do care about the pubic that counts on early morning and late night bus service to get to and from
work?? Considering that Phoenix is the 5th Largest City in the Country and its Transit System is by far one of the worst. I guess if the City hadn’t spent MEGA MILLIONS on the light rail stations and all the fancy art work
to go with it, there might be some money left over for the bus service. If the
City is so worried about money; why not clear out some of the DEAD WEIGHT at City Hall and the Transit Department at the Compass
Building; I am sure that could pay to keep some buses on the road .
But who gives a RAT’S ASS it is only the Public and the Bus Operators
as well as all the Businesses on Central that are going to pay the price of this latest Brain Storm by our City Transportation
Experts. I guess the City figures the businesses on Central haven’t suffered
enough in the last 3 years as Central was torn apart for Light Rail, lets screw them a little more by cutting out late night
bus service, who needs people to frequent downtown at night any way!!! And don’t
forget that the CITY is going to let everybody RIDE LIGHT RAIL FOR FREE for the first FULL WEEK of service.
One really has to wonder what Debbie and the City Managers are doing with all
the FEDERAL money that has been given to Phoenix. Oh well,
with the price of gas up and the economy in the toilet, bus ridership up about 22% why the hell should we care about BUS SERVICE?
As long as all the City Managers keep getting a paycheck, who gives a DAMN about
the riding public, the Operators who need a paycheck, as well as all the business owners who need employees being able to
get to and from work, as well as customers to patronize their businesses. As
the City Grows the TRANSIT SYSTEM SHRINKS makes a lot of sense to me, how about you?
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY 4TH OF JULY TO PHOENIX
AND 1ST TRANSIT OPERATORS FROM THE CITY OF PHOENIX!!!!!!!!!!!!!
After sitting through 2 transportation meetings today the news only gets worse, and
once more who is going to suffer? The riding public and the operators of course. It was made known to us at the 800am meeting
that there will be a 5 million dollar service cut at the end of December 2008, so MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR from
the City of Phoenix Public Transportation Department and the City Managers. But who the hell cares as long as the City keeps
getting the Federal Money in their Palms.
Then we have HAPPY 4TH OF JULY to all Operators and the Riding Public as
it was also announced at the 800am meeting that come July 2009 their will be a 22 MILLION DOLLAR SERVICE REDUCTION, that’s
right I said 22 MILLION DOLLARS in service reductions come July 2009. Does DEBBIE COTTON and THE CITY MANAGERS care about
the Operators that have car payments and mortgage payments? Or do they even give a damn about the inconvenience that this
will cause the people that count on the bus as their mean mode of transportation? Some how I really doubt it. If I had to
make a wager I would bet that PHOENIX is NOT going to hire any more classes
this year and probably very few next year if any. Doing some very quick math we figure 8-10 operators per million dollars
without knowing exactly how they are going to implement these ridiculous cuts.
I know they are not going to get rid of any of the TOP HEAVY management in the CITY
TRANSPORTATION DEPARTMENT to lessen the burden on the operators and the public
so that really only seems to leave 1 choice?????????
I would really recommend that we all band together and show up at the next transportation committee meeting and let them
know just what we think of their STUPIDITY. And then we can carry it over to the Council meeting and let MAYOR PHIL GORDON
know exactly what we think at the same time!!!!!!
Maybe it is time to get the MEDIA in full blown on this issue seeing as how the media loves to attack the Operators,
now maybe it is time to let them attack the COTTON EXPRESS!!!!!!
PHOENIX BAH
HUMBUG!!!
Just when you thought that things couldn’t get any worse, DEBBIE COTTON and the
City Managers and Transportation Committee have sunken to a new low, and have gone to show us all that they don’t
care about the Operators or the public and are trying to mask it all with the Famous Line BUDGET CUTS!!!
For the first time in many years the Phoenix
Operators will not be participating in the Bus Rodeo due once more to the famous BUDGET CUTS. The Christmas Holiday
bus will NOT be out running in December and January due to BUDGET CUTS!!! So much for the Phoenix
Operators that look forward every year to participating in the Rodeo as they have for many years past. All the other companies
think it absolutely great as they see themselves having a chance of winning it this year. Pretty funny how all the other companies
can still participate in the Rodeo, and 4 of them are Veolia Properties!!!!! So I guess what is good for the Operator really
doesn’t matter when it comes to Debbie and the rest of the City Managers. Then we have the Holiday Bus that has put
a smile on so many faces over the Holidays, little kids and especially the elderly who this bus really helps out during the
Holiday Season, as well as the many Operators that have the privilege of driving this festive bus. But it’s only the
public and the Operator that are going to suffer once more. If it is a money issue, then why doesn’t the city cut back
on the amount of top heavy mangers that they carry on a daily basis?
Lets get back to the BUDGET CUTS!!!!! Debbie and the City Managers want to pass off
transit in Phoenix as a first class system, yet we have no real protection out there, we have the homeless that think the
bus stops are there personal apartment with nothing done about it. Now between Phoenix
Transit and 1st Transit we are looking at between a 20 to 30% reduction in service, which by our figures translate
into approximately 200 or better cut in Operators. This kind of cut will also be the elimination of routes throughout the
City and West Valley
but lets not worry about it as we are a first class service and continually receive Federal Money to operate. Maybe if the
Feds knew exactly how things were run, then the money would dry up. But lets not worry about the 20 to 30% reduction in service
that we are not supposed to know about, it will only affect the PUBLIC as well as the livelihood of many OPERATORS, but that
is ok as DEBBIE COTTON and the CITY MANAGERS will still all be receiving their paychecks. Maybe it is again time to call up
our friendly reporter at the NEW TIMES and let her run this story throughout the Valley for ALL to read.

PHOENIX AND 1ST TRANSIT OPERATORS
The
City has taken it upon themselves to make all of the Operators FARE Enforcement POLICE. Phoenix
has come out with a bulletin for its new fare enforcement decals which are now asking the operator to start enforcing the
FULL fare to ride now. It goes on to say “state the fare and let the customer know that the full fare must be paid.
Let the customer know that it is no longer your discretion to let them ride without paying the full fare” this is now
about 20 years too late as it has always been the policy of the city just to let them ride no questions asked. Does the term
“courtesy ride” ring a bell? They now want you to become the new big bad fare enforcer after they have told
you for years just to let them ride.
The
way it looks to me is that rather than stick management or the cops out on the buses to enforce this new policy, they want
you the operator to do their dirty work and at the same time set yourselves up to become human punching bags over what is
going to be major fare disputes on a daily basis now. If the city and the company want this so bloody bad let them enforce
it with the proper people, as you the operator have enough to worry about on a daily basis let alone now worry about fare
enforcement. Do not get yourself hurt, hit, spit on, or verbally abused for the city or the company over this new policy,
which by the way never was discussed with the union again!!!!!!!
SPLITTING OF THE NORTH AND SOUTH GARAGES.
The split has been put on hold until 2010,
which will likely be the end of the current CBA for Phoenix. Darling Debbie and Tom Callow did not like the fact that we got
our Lawyer involved, and especially the fact that he started to send information requests in to Debbie and the City.
LIGHT RAIL
Light Rail is up and running, but not without problems already.
We have come to a tentative agreement with ACI and sent it to thenm back on or about the 15th of December 2008 and to date
have not heard a thing back from them which is leaving the Operators in Limbo. We are now hearing that they have changed the
Medical already which goes against what we negotiated, as well as pay issues and dispatching issues. Hopefully we can get
this all taken care of in the near future
OPERATOR ASSAULTS
The Operator assaults are going up as the ridership goes up, due to the failing economy.
Is the City or the Company doing any more to prevent them?????? If you are assaulted and defend yourself you can guarantee
yourself a hearing, and if the company doesn’t like what they see on the DVR you can be guaranteed some time off if
not termination. This is the easy solution to the assault situation, rather than doing what most major cities do by hiring
a real Transit Police Force That carry Guns and actually have the power to arrest people. Sure the City’s Transit Department
has hired Transit Security, but how many of them have the total power of an actual cop? Are they riding the buses in plain
clothes on a daily basis? The only reason there is as many Transit Security as there is now is because of the light rail start
up in December, but if you remember the article in the Arizona Republic,
it was made well known that these security officers would only have radios so as to be able to call a real cop if needed.
So it really has been broadcast that we really don’t have a Transit Cop Force to reckon with.
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