The OCTA’s union bus maintenance employees remain on strike – which has been a disaster for Orange County’s working poor. Many residents have not been able to get to work as a result of the lack of bus service. Those workers and their families face an uncertain financial future as their inability to get to work will result in no pay and some of them may even get fired.
Public transit is critical for people to reach jobs, education, healthcare, grocery shopping and elsewhere. Approximately 85% of riders use OC Bus as their primary means of transportation and more than half of riders have a total household income of less than $50,000.
The OCTA offered the striking union workers a top wage of $43.19 an hour for journeyman mechanics – equivalent to nearly $90,000 per year. For comparisons’ sake the State of California’s employment website shows that Automotive Service Technicians and Mechanics can expect to earn an hourly pay of $26.92 with the top salaries coming in at $30.62 per hour.
The OCTA also offered a 14.25% wage increase over the three years. Compensation costs (which generally include salaries, raises, and benefits) are expected to jump this year to 3.9%, according to Investopedia. This is the highest level reported since 2008. Most workers will be lucky to get that 3.9% wage increase while the OCTA is offering a whopping 14.25% increase to their greedy striking bus maintenance workers!
You might expect the Orange County Democratic Party to support the working poor who depend on OC buses to get to work and school. However that is not the case! Instead the OC Democratic Party is urging elected officials, their candidates, Democratic activists and the general public to stand together with the Teamster mechanics, their families and coach operators by joining the picket lines!
Let’s be clear about this – the striking OCTA bus maintenance workers CANNOT expect to make the kind of money they have already been offered at any private company in Orange County. The top salaries for such workers come in at about $30 an hour while the OCTA has already offered over $43 an hour.
The election is on November 8. As you turn in your ballots remember that the OC Democratic Party does not care about working people one bit. They only care about overpaid greedy union workers!
$43 an hour for a Donkey Dummycrat to sit in a chair and joyride throughout Orange County is insane!
Even worse this contract does not involve the coach operators but rather the mechanics and service people. However the coach operators are honoring the picket line and as such letting down the people of Orange County.
I D I O T
It would be good for you and your followers to research the wages at OCTA from the top down along with the percentage increases their, before arguing your faulty position on this subject.
Those executives all have advanced degrees. Their salaries are commensurate with industry rates. Your striking workers are getting paid way more than those in private industry.
Standard response I expected. ‘Advanced Degrees’. So a bus mechanic should not receive more money than a regular automotive mechanic? That’s your argument. So I ask you again, should an ‘advance degree’ entitle them to a higher percentage increase in wage, without regard for ‘fiscal responsibility’?? Or to cry poverty when mechanics, service workers, and bus drivers ask for a fair increase??? You need help!
Here is the main difference. The executives at the OCTA did not shut down the bus service. The greedy union mechanics did. They chose to screw the public. They have been offered way more money than they could EVER make in private industry and benefits far beyond what most of us can get. They need to stop the strike, accept the deal and stop punishing the working poor of Orange County.
Fair increase? They make enough to actually AFFORD healthcare, one of the points they wanted covered. You don’t understand an argument versus a fact. “so a bus mechanic should not receive more money than a regular automotive mechanic?” – It’s stated that they’re earning $13/hr more than the average. They do not need to be paid more, eventually the gaps will be filled with people who want money.
So, then, what about the people who need busses, what about their health? The seniors, for example? Kids trying to get to school? Oh, right, like you’d actually have ever sat with them on a bus. What next, public transportation is for losers?
It’s a union of 150~ affecting 100,000~ citizens. Oh, and don’t forget credibility. Rather than planning a strike after the two voting days, they decided to have an impromptu strike only to delay their strike. Rather than having a timed strike to let people find alternatives, they actually left people stranded. Physically abandoned.
Faulty positions, right? Well, you seem to forget who’s at the mercy of whom. Everyone’s a damned peasant compared, yet they’re at the mercy of people far richer. Executives > maintenance workers > bosses of different businesses > bus riding peasants. Peasants will never attain richness, they need to do as they do to survive. If they lose their funding, they become poor and live on the streets. Might want to consider how fundamentally flawed our current society is, if you really want to argue about fair wages.