Another example of mismanagement: 3 years ago when the current contract was agreed to, the workers gave back money in the form of health care contributions and pension funds. The CTA was held legally liable by an arbitrator to bring a practically empty pension fund back to full stability in a certain amount of time. Their answer was to get more from us by increasing our contribution while doing the same on their side. (The reasoning for our empty pension fund is another interesting tale that you should do some research on, needless to say the company got over on the union once again.) Almost immediately after we agreed to these terms in order to have a viable pension fund the CTA gave it’s managers a nice fat raise. Now everyone does deserve to make the most money they can but the timing of that raise seemed a little off in my eyes. It is just one in a long line of decisions that have left the union members feeling distrust toward management.

I personally took a job with this company because of the benefits and pension. I took a pay cut to work here and traded a comfortable schedule for an insane one so that I could provide for my family. Most people do not know the ins and outs of what we workers go through. Now I’m not asking for sympathy and like I said I hate it that people are without work but do not fault me or the union for the current situation……..it’s more complicated than that.

Besides in Chicago, in the past 12 months, service cuts have been taken or proposed in New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Seattle, Portland (Oregon), Boston, and many other places. In every instance, unions refusing to budge on outdated work agreements in the face of a deeply recessed economy have been the primary reason why.

I can only imagine in city after city, union workers got the same bad advice they got here in Chicago–that they somehow magically deserved a better economic deal in the middle of a hellish recession than the members of the public at large who a.) employed them; b.) paid their salaries; and c.) were in no way guaranteed a similar free ride.

What I find most laughable in Chicago’s case are the hackneyed, outdated calls for the CTA to “fire the fatcats” in management. No transit agency would ever cut service if there were any viable option not to do so, the CTA included. In fact, CTA tightened its belt repeatedly over the past few years as pandering government officials forbade it to incrementally raise fares, which would have been a help. All the ridiculous 1970s-era rhetoric used by union representatives to rile up the faithful managed to do–Fatcats? Really now?–was lull members into believing that somehow the agency wasn’t telling the truth.

With 1,100 union workers now out of work because the money just wasn’t there to pay them anymore, isn’t about time the union clues into the fact that no one’s moving up in this economy? As an Illinois taxpayer, I help pay CTA salaries salary, yet I’m struggling hard not to fall through the economic cracks along with everyone else. Given that, my first priority simply cannot be to make sure CTA union workers remain comfortably middle-class.

The years spent abusing the working men and women of this city led to laws and our right to form unions in an attempt to protect our rights from unfair labor practices. Such unfair labor practices still occur despite our attempts to use said laws and unions. Those that are forced on us we accept without the general publics knowledge. There are no news reports lasting months or buses announcing those bad deals, none the less they exist. When you consider these accounts coupled with managements newest and well publicized bad deals there is no wonder why we and yes I said WE had to turn down their offer. The offer which the general public will never see, an offer that included much more than reported.

So as much as it hurts me to see people out of work and the effect this will have on this city, it is not the unions problem to solve; this one belongs to both management and our elected officials. I know it’s much harder to get them to concede or admit wrongdoing and the front line workers who earn much less and feel all of the backlash are seemingly easier targets………we must stand united and fight for the working man/woman.