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ECAT Drivers Delay Strike
December 3, 2009
ECAT bus drivers won’t go on strike until next week at the earliest.
Escambia County Area Transit drivers voted last week to strike. After a full meeting of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1395, the union voted to meet again with Veolia Transportation, the private company that runs ECAT for the county.
That second meeting will take place today. If the union and Veolia can’t reach an agreement, the union is expected vote to strike next Tuesday.
The issue is a 4.5 percent pay raise that the transportation union says is guaranteed in their contracts. But Escambia County won’t pony up the $225,000 citing a lack of funds. The bus drivers voluntarily agreed in 2007 to skip raises on the promise of the 4.5 percent pay increase this year.
Government employees are forbidden to strike in Florida, but since the bus drivers are employees of Veolia, a private company, they are allowed by law to go on strike.
ECAT runs one route in North Escambia, with six-day a week bus service to and from Pensacola, Cantonment, Molino and Century.
Comments
2 Responses to “ECAT Drivers Delay Strike”
You make a valid point about taxpayers footing the bill, but I disagree with the statement that the employer can’t afford to pay their employees. Violia is a FRENCH company. They post substantial profits every quarter.
If money is tight, why not not fire the international corporation that is making a profit from tax payers money, and run the bus system locally? The money that is saved would easily pay employees, and put money back into the local ecconomy.
The workers have a vested interest in providing service to their community; the international corporation is only interested in profit margin. Refusing to pay a contractual obligation is evidence. Google Violia and check out their stockholders reports.
It saddens me to think of what kind of neighbor would take a striking friend’s job. This isn’t about workers being greedy; it’s about business making a profit at the expense of workers, taxpayers, and the entire ecconomy.
I agree that all of us could use a raise with the cost of everything going up it looks like our paychecks are getting smaller. I don’t know of any of my freinds our myself that will be getting raises this year. We are just glad to have a job and be working. No private company or Goverment can afford to give raises this year or maybe the next year as wll. The economy is bad and surely the city bus driver know that if they are giving a raise then some one that works with/beside them will probably loose there job and that an’t in any way worth it. Everybody needs a job. And the city bus driver need to know the the tax payer don’t want to bail them out when we the taxpayers are suffering to. Nobody has any extra money right now and when things get better then the city bus union should ask for a raise.
Me as a taxpayer I would say no to the raise and if they want to strike I’m sure there are a lot of unemployed people that would be glad to take their jobs