MTA: ‘More Traffic Ahead?’
* The first thing for all of us to realize about MTA bus drivers is that they have children to educate and mortgages to pay just as we do. As a frequent bus rider, I know the drivers are not saints; some of them are so stressed out from long hours and tight schedules that they are downright uncivil. That said, the bus drivers still work very hard for their money, transporting half a million of us in buses that often lack working air conditioning--resulting in physically uncomfortable, sometimes disgruntled passengers--and they work in dangerous neighborhoods at all hours of the day and night. I think they deserve to retain decent pay so they can continue to pay their bills like the rest of us.
The MTA spins the strike as the union versus the mass-transit-dependent public. In reality, the MTA is making a power play in which it is trying to take bus drivers’ overtime pay away, a contract giveback euphemistically termed “a change in work rules.” I can imagine how I would feel if my boss suddenly decided to stop paying me overtime when asking me to put in even more hours.
Let MTA management correct its past money-management errors in some honorable way, not at the expense of the bus riders or of the bus drivers. Perhaps they could even trim the part of the MTA budget devoted to taking care of MTA managers. Just a thought.
MYRNA HILL
Sylmar
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I couldn’t believe my ears. A striker says he’s paid $50,000 a year and has earned as much as $70,000. Plus they have full benefits. They are way overpaid. In contrast, you have health-care and janitorial workers striking for peanuts and they do a much harder and disgusting (at times) job. The MTA strikers union should be disbanded, but it has too many drivers that can’t be replaced quickly enough.
I drove 18-wheelers for 25 years. My best years were $24,000. Many truck owner-operators after all expenses don’t net $50,000 in a year. Plus, MTA drivers are public servants. They should not be allowed to strike, like law enforcement.
RICK GREEN
Simi Valley
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How about this proposition: Take a well-seasoned MTA bus, remove seats to accommodate a conference table and direct all parties to meet there to resolve strike issues as the bus lurches through downtown L.A. traffic. While this real-world setting may seem like a cruel thing to those accustomed to the MTA palace, I will guarantee that conflict resolution will be swiftly expedited.
These parties have clients. These are the people they are responsible to, for whom bus access means keeping bread on the table or seeing the doctor or getting to school.
TED McLEAN
Santa Monica
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Does MTA really stand for More Traffic Ahead?
STUART A. CANNOLD
Palmdale
