Do our elected officials care?

[Derf Nosneb]

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So lets get this straight, 

It was more important to the recently elected officials of Beaumont to, spend $5m + to buy a building and smash it down for "green space", start a "homeless coalition" and attempt to get the rust bucket Battleship Texas to "relocate" here. 

But they cannot keep city employees and the most vulnerable, those with no other form of transportation, safe.

Thats Beaumont for ya...

[tvc184]

Those are not a city employees.

Except for police officers and firefighters, it is against the law for public workers to be in a union in Texas.  These are outside contract workers brought in.

This is a straight up contract negotiation with a company that bid on a project. It has nothing to do with city workers or their benefits.

Being media they don’t explain it very well but they dropped a few hints like the contract negotiations with First Transit. Even the bus drivers say they are Beaumont city transit workers and they are not. I mean they drive buses and they are in the city of Beaumont under contract but they drive for a company called First Transit. Their strike would be against First Transit, not the city of Beaumont. Obviously Beaumont pays the contract with First Transit but the workers are not negotiating with Beaumont.

It is easy to misunderstand with the way the local media does not report anything but what it thinks is sensational. You would think the article at least starts out by saying that Beaumont has contracted with a company and the workers are negotiating with that company. But, no….

I don’t live in Beaumont but agree that there’s a lot of waste of money such as buying that building to tear down but in this case this is nothing but a private company negotiating it employees. It is sure hard to tell it from the article and I think it is put out to make it appear that Beaumont is mistreating its employee. I would guess that the actual employees have a pretty good pay package between benefits and salary.

[tvc184]

I found this memorandum from the city of Beaumont from back in June.

It clearly makes the statement that First Transit is a contract company and the union workers are in negotiation with that company.

It goes on to say that Beaumont is prohibited from being involved in the negotiation. That is because like I said, public service unions are not legal in Texas except for police and fire.

Again, there is a lot not to like about the way Beaumont is run but this is not one of those cases in my opinion. 

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[Derf Nosneb]

Great follow up tvc184.

It's just crazy like I stated, that it affects those who need it the most.

[tvc184]

34 minutes ago, Derf Nosneb said:

Great follow up tvc184.

It's just crazy like I stated, that it affects those who need it the most.

I called this a disservice by the news media. Anybody could look at that report and come  to the same conclusion that you did. In fact they practically said it by calling them Beaumont transit workers which they are not.

The news media somewhat of a joke (notwithstanding some good reporters) and they never explain anything and sometimes I think they don’t know either. I have done many interviews over the years on television, new specials, print media and hundreds of press releases.

I can assure you that when you talk to them they sometimes never have a clue but don’t ask anything follow up. There is no problem not understanding a situation with something you’re not familiar with but that should be part of reporting, asking pertinent questions. “What do you mean by that” would go a long way.  They just put what they think they heard and it might be totally bogus. I honestly don’t think they outright lie on purpose. There just seems to be very little investigative reporting, just filling up space in the news.

[SmashMouth]

42 minutes ago, tvc184 said:

I called this a disservice by the news media. Anybody could look at that report and come  to the same conclusion that you did. In fact they practically said it by calling them Beaumont transit workers which they are not.

The news media somewhat of a joke (notwithstanding some good reporters) and they never explain anything and sometimes I think they don’t know either. I have done many interviews over the years on television, new specials, print media and hundreds of press releases.

I can assure you that when you talk to them they sometimes never have a clue but don’t ask anything follow up. There is no problem not understanding a situation with something you’re not familiar with but that should be part of reporting, asking pertinent questions. “What do you mean by that” would go a long way.  They just put what they think they heard and it might be totally bogus. I honestly don’t think they outright lie on purpose. There just seems to be very little investigative reporting, just filling up space in the news.

vis a vis, they’re mostly idiots. I have to agree. 

[CardinalBacker]

The problem is that the city got a few million for public transit in the CARES Act, but the money hasn't actually gone towards public transit...or at least that's the belief of the drivers.  Two million or so was what I'd heard.

 

[tvc184]

5 hours ago, CardinalBacker said:

The problem is that the city got a few million for public transit in the CARES Act, but the money hasn't actually gone towards public transit...or at least that's the belief of the drivers.  Two million or so was what I'd heard.

 

But the drivers don’t have a dog in the hunt so to speak. They are hired by a private company just like many local drivers. Many of the construction jobs in this area have private bus companies that drive the workers to the job site like Hotard.  It doesn’t matter how much the chemical plant makes, they are not working for the plant. That is the entire point of hiring a private company. They take care of all the personnel issues. You pay for a product and they are supposed to show up.

As the press release that I posted above says, the city of Beaumont cannot be involved.

I know the drivers want more money. Almost everybody does. 

 

[CardinalBacker]

17 hours ago, tvc184 said:

But the drivers don’t have a dog in the hunt so to speak. They are hired by a private company just like many local drivers. Many of the construction jobs in this area have private bus companies that drive the workers to the job site like Hotard.  It doesn’t matter how much the chemical plant makes, they are not working for the plant. That is the entire point of hiring a private company. They take care of all the personnel issues. You pay for a product and they are supposed to show up.

As the press release that I posted above says, the city of Beaumont cannot be involved.

I know the drivers want more money. Almost everybody does. 

 

I guess that's the question... if the Feds gave 2m of the 1 bn dollars of texas' money for Beaumont's public transportation, then where did it go?

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Sorry... it was 6.26 million for public transportation improvements in Beaumont.   PAT got 6.22 million as well.  I'm just saying.. if you're still driving the same ol' raggedy buses and the drivers/contractors didn't get a bump, then where did the money go?

[tvc184]

1 minute ago, CardinalBacker said:

I guess that's the question... if the Feds gave 2m of the 1 bn dollars of texas' money for Beaumont's public transportation, then where did it go?

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Sorry... it was 6.26 million for public transportation improvements in Beaumont.   PAT got 6.22 million as well.  I'm just saying.. if you're still driving the same ol' raggedy buses and the drivers/contractors didn't get a bump, then where did the money go?

Like I have said a couple of times, there’s a lot to criticize in the city of Beaumont.

That has nothing to do with people arguing with a private company on how much they will get paid. Again, except for police and fire there are no public unions in Texas. The city of Beaumont cannot negotiate a contract with the bus drivers. They are not city employees. The news article posted in the OP make it appear as the Beaumont in negotiating with their employees which is false. Beaumont is not negotiating and the employees are not hired by the city of Beaumont.

[SmashMouth]

2 hours ago, tvc184 said:

Again, except for police and fire there are no public unions in Texas.

Essentially you are mostly correct. The municipal employees of Houston are an exception. 

Here’s the weird part, there are other labor unions as well that represent public employees, they just can’t strike or participate in collective bargaining (Texas AFT for teachers, for instance).

[tvc184]

5 minutes ago, SmashMouth said:

Essentially you are mostly correct. The municipal employees of Houston are an exception. 

Here’s the weird part, there are other labor unions as well that represent public employees, they just can’t strike or participate in collective bargaining (Texas AFT for teachers, for instance).

If they cannot participate in collective bargaining, they have no union.

You can call yourself a union and you can belong to an organization that pays to lobby or legal fees if you get in trouble. 

We had the same thing in the police department years before we went for collective-bargaining. We had no authority but the state police “union” would give us legal representation if we tried to organize and the police department tried to put a lot of pressure on us not to. I was at dues paying member of the national AFL-CIO…. yet we were not in a collective bargaining union at that time. But, we did have the authority to organize which we did a few years later. 

As an example some of our dispatchers belong to our association/union but they can’t bargain. They are also dues paying members. They cannot vote on our contract and are not affected by it, however being a member if they get terminated and they think it’s wrongful, the union will provide a lawyer. By being a member if they get terminated and they think it’s wrongful, the union will provide a lawyer. Simply put, they have no collective bargaining powers. That is reserved for first responders.

[SmashMouth]

2 minutes ago, tvc184 said:

If they cannot participate in collective bargaining, they have no union.

You can call yourself a union and you can belong to an organization that pays to lobby or legal fees if you get in trouble. 

We had the same thing in the police department years before we went for collective-bargaining. We had no authority but the state police “union” would give us legal representation if we tried to organize and the police department tried to put a lot of pressure on us not to. I was at dues paying member of the national AFL-CIO…. yet we were not in a collective bargaining union at that time. But, we did have the authority to organize which we did a few years later. 

As an example some of our dispatchers belong to our association/union but they can’t bargain. They are also dues paying members. They cannot vote on our contract and are not affected by it, however being a member if they get terminated and they think it’s wrongful, the union will provide a lawyer. By being a member if they get terminated and they think it’s wrongful, the union will provide a lawyer. Simply put, they have no collective bargaining powers. That is reserved for first responders.

Pretty much what I said. Other than the Houston municipal workers do have true union rights. I know it’s semantics, but my example of the Texas AFT is actually recognized as a union. I agree though, without collective bargaining and strike power, it’s not really a union. 
 

Those in unions will vehemently disagree with me, but I’m glad the unions have gone by the wayside in the last 50 years or so. 

[tvc184]

18 minutes ago, SmashMouth said:

Essentially you are mostly correct. The municipal employees of Houston are an exception. 

Here’s the weird part, there are other labor unions as well that represent public employees, they just can’t strike or participate in collective bargaining (Texas AFT for teachers, for instance).

I probably could’ve cut it short and said, anybody can call an organization what they want but only the police and fire in Texas can have collective-bargaining. We are like any other nationally accredited union in the country except that we cannot strike by state law. 

[tvc184]

1 minute ago, SmashMouth said:

Pretty much what I said. Other than the Houston municipal workers do have true union rights. I know it’s semantics, but my example of the Texas AFT is actually recognized as a union. I agree though, without collective bargaining and strike power, it’s not really a union. 
 

Those in unions will vehemently disagree with me, but I’m glad the unions have gone by the wayside in the last 50 years or so. 

That’s what I talked about with our dispatchers. They can say, I am in a union.

Can you bargained for wages? No.

Can you bargained for working conditions? No.

Can you vote on the police contract? No.

 Can you organize for collective-bargaining? No.

But we are in a union..  

[tvc184]

I have actually questioned a couple of dispatchers before, asking why they joined. I appreciate them donating money that we get to spend. I have heard them give the argument I gave above, they can be provided with a lawyer. Follow up was, yes but you have no rights other than federal law which is an EEOC discrimination in which case you don’t really need a lawyer. Our officers are covered by state law under civil service which covers hiring, promotions and all kinds of things and then by our collective bargaining agreement. Basically we have tons of rights and they have none except discrimination.

But, I do appreciate their monthly donation to our association/union.