Don�t let any of the Met Council rhetoric fool you � this strike is all about safety for Minneapolis residents, drivers, pedestrians, bicyclists and transit riders.
Our Metro Transit buses are the largest vehicles on the road on most Minneapolis streets and the skill and commitment of the people behind the wheels of those buses is of critical importance to us here in the city.
I am a union organizer with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 284 � Minnesota�s largest school bus drivers union � and I can tell you what we have found over the years about safety and reliability in student transportation. When you have drivers with good pay, affordable health benefits and good retirement benefits, you turn driving into a career � not just a job. When drivers are given lower pay, benefits that aren�t affordable and no retirement to look forward to (as is the case at many of the private school bus companies like Laidlaw and First Student) safety and reliability suffer. For an example, just look at last month�s hit-and-run incident involving a Rehbein operated bus and an elementary school student in Vadnais Heights.
This strike represents a watershed moment for the people who operate those buses we coexist with on our Minneapolis streets every day. Will drivers continue to be career professionals with a personal stake in being safe or will we lower standards and put safety and reliability second? Ask my little brother, a year-round bike commuter who puts his life in the hands of Metro Transit drivers every day, what he thinks.
The Met Council has done a masterful job of spinning in this contract dispute � but make no mistake about their hypocrisy. Managers at Metro Transit just received a hefty raise from the Met Council.
I don�t see much moral gray area here. The Met Council is trying to price drivers out of being able to afford family health insurance and is trying to go back on their commitment to provide retiree health insurance � all to protect a few cents worth of the tax cuts some of us have received. The results of a Met Council win here would be disastrous for these drivers and their families and detrimental to the quality of life on our city streets. If we as a community can�t pull together and, with one voice, denounce what the Met Council is trying to do here we will send a pretty clear message of our own:
Go ahead � give us more Wal-Mart jobs and a less dependable and less safe public service.
Paul C. Rohlfing Powderhorn (Ward 9, Precinct 7 had 90 folks at the DFL caucus last night!)
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