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ECAT Union Sets Strike Date
September 11, 2013
ECAT drivers and employees have set an October 21 strike date if their labor disputes are not settled with the firm that manages that transit system.
The Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1395 represents about 85 ECAT workers and about Pensacola Bay Transportation para-transit employees. The employees have worked since the summer of 2010 under an expired contract. The union has tried to negotiate a new three-year contact with the UK-basked First Transit, which has managed ECAT singe 2012.
The transit workers previously went on strike in 2011 against the prior management company, Veolia Transportation, a French Company.
Union President Michael Lowery has said it remains the goal of the union that all transit workers become public employees under the Board of County Commission but he and his team will keep an open mind. He said that all tax dollars, especially noting the new 4-cent gas tax for transit which starts in January, should remain entirely in Escambia County.
“Allowing our tax dollars to go out of our County and State or for that matter out of our Country is just not stewards of our tax dollars and helping grow our local economy,” Lowerysaid.
Comments
27 Responses to “ECAT Union Sets Strike Date”
The danger of public transportation: you rely on the unreliable, can only go where it goes, can only go when it goes, share the air with the contageously sick, might make an easy target for terrorists (not the Century bus, but others).
Flip side: don’t have to pay for and keep up car if you can get by, are safer in most wrecks, can plan your day with fewer decisions to make, meet interesting people (even if they sneeze on you), can read as you go places or enjoy the sights, others pay part of your expenses
David for Googlemobiles.
Drivers just quit . go to work for someone else.
Let’s not run across the border to buy gas, let us run the Commissioners off that passed this extra gas tax. Better yet, let’s start a petition drive to make it a ballot issue to stop funding ECAT, and repeal the gas tax. If that doesn’t work, lets have a recall election. If anybody remembers, the Commissioners passed this tax between the election, and the time when new Commissioners took office. Smells at best.
I won’t buy gas in Escambia county either.
If they want a buss system in Pensacola, thats fine. That might work, but let the city pay for it.
ECAT does not serve the county residents to any appreciable degree.
Why would I drive (X) miles to park my car so I can wait for a buss to take me somewhere down town, then walk to my first destination that I needed to go to. Then I repeat this to get to the remaining stops needed. And then wait (with packages) in the rain to ride back to my car and drive home.
If this scenario makes any sense to our BOCC, then THEY are the problem.
Oh, I almost forgot the FOREIGN contractor thing . Grrr
Corruption or just incompetence. Who Knows?
Either way it stinks.
Michael Lowery stated their goal — and it has been unchanged since the last strike and running off of Veolia… They (the bus drivers) want to become COUNTY EMPLOYEES. Uh, hello — there is a reason why the County Commission farmed it out to a contractor to begin with! To get rid of unnecessary county employees and reduce costs to run the under-used transit system.
They can strike their little hearts out — and run off this contractor if they choose — but the County Commission will NEVER make the bus drivers county employees again…never!
Mr. Lowery just needs to get back behind the wheel of a bus and drive a route — and be thankful he has a job…rather then rousing up the drivers in a frenzy like he’s Al Sharton or Jesse Jackson!
join me by going on strike when it comes to buying gas in escambia county. i’ll drive to al. or santa rosa county , but i will not but gas in escambia. defund obama care and ecat.
just thought i would throw obama care in.
I need a job..let me know when you walk..I will take it right out from under you..while I drive your bus right past you while your standing in the food stamp line.
If ecat shuts down does that mean we will no longer get robbed for 4 cents a gallon ?
Who gives a rats behind if they strike. I see the bus come thru Molino going to Century every morning and the most I have ever seen on it is three people including the driver (yes it is lighted inside so you can tell how many riders are on it). I will be buying my gas in Santa Rosa county or Alabama so let them strike!!!!! If you want to count the people on the bus every morning it comes up hwy. 29 every morning betyween 5:30 and 6:00 a.m.
Public transportation is something that all cities do for the public. Even though all the public do not use. Somebody has to pay for it.
I do not like paying for something that I do not use nor want.
Strike? Go for it!
I do not support ECAT…why pay for something I do not use….go ahead and strike…the majority of the tax payers do not care!!!!!!!…ECAT is a waste of money and a drain to the tax payers.
Quickly start taking applications for replacement personnel.
Compensation is adequate when you can get sufficient qualified applications to fill the positions. Hire from that pool and reduce the unemployment in our county. We would find that the policy on smoke breaks, coffee breaks and overtime policy is satisfactory to the unemployed.
The union steward said this. ”
Allowing our tax dollars to go out of our County and State or for that matter out of our Country is just not stewards of our tax dollars and helping grow our local economy,” Lowerysaid. But…. look at who manages them and takes the money out of the US?? The union has tried to negotiate a new three-year contact with the UK-based First Transit, which has managed ECAT singe 2012.
The transit workers previously went on strike in 2011 against the prior management company, Veolia Transportation, a French Company.
Repeal the 4cent/gal tax – Do we need to pay a FOREIGN company to manage a bunch of bus drivers and routes – seriously? it can’t be more difficult than a school bus/route? If it can’t support itself with fares then it should be shut down. I am tired of our money going to out of the county, and sending money out of the COUNTRY is just crazy!
I want my 4 cents back… now fire ecat
Sounds like a good idea for them to “STRIKE”. While their on Strike Defund the entire system. The tax dollars can be used in a more productive way especially if we vote all the county commissioners out and start over with a new slate.
Not that I wish for anyone to not have a job, but please tell me what they are striking? They are employees of a un-needed, and bad managed public transit system that never has full busses nor does it service all areas. They need to realize that ECAT is a bad idea for this town (OR at least the size/routes and funding is) They need funds? Cut the absurd stops….The bus stop is in front of the county jail (Whos employees are being jacked around and used as pawns in the BOCC VS Sheriff situation and make less then bus drivers in some instances) and there is a stop one block up the road by the old Gulf Winds Credit union. WHY??? Seems to me the people I’m paying to ride this bus want to ride it bad enough they will walk that extra block and take some of these hits too! A bus system is not part of this towns safety and security. It isn’t going to help or hurt crime. Start making some cuts, downsize, ect…instead of handing over more money and time to a failing system update the county jail, open more places for youth, more school resource officers to guard our children.
I thought that Florida was a “right to work” state. No need for the union.
The county shouldn’t even have ECAT. It is socialistic “mass” transit that the “masses” do not use, but have to pay for.
I agree with the comments here. This is bordering on the insane. Pass a tax to support the transit system, and then the workers go on strike.
Shut it down and give us our 4 cents a gallon back !!
If they strike, the voters should demand it be de-funded (and the tax repealed) and closed, all the employees dismissed (certainly not be made county employees) and sold off to an private entity. Let the market decide whether or not this service survives.
Tax and More tax, And the unions strike for more money. Man it would really unset the tax payer if you stayed on strike, that way it would save thousands of dollars in fuel cost running a shuttle and bus system with no passengers or three or four on board. Even better make them county employees. What a joke!!!
Enough is enough, abolish ECAT saving tax dollars and level the transit station.
Go on strike and then just go away. The vast majority does not won’t to support this union bunch.
Sure will miss’em.
Can we have our 4 cents back now.
I have to agree that any of the 4 cent gas tax increase needs to stay in Escambia County. But I will be buying my gas in Alabama whenever possible!