凍結 天然氣 火車

Wow! There is sure a bunch of wimps on the Phoenix city council. All it takes is a tiny threat from some union thugs to strike and they will bend and cater to mob rule.

Remember the bus drivers were not striking against the city of Phoenix or Tempe. The bus drivers were striking against Veolia.

Valley Metro is the government entity that provides bus service to the Phoenix Metro area. I believe it is owned by or perhaps a partnership of Phoenix, Tempe, Mesa and the other cities in the Valley that receive the bus service.

Valley Metro contracts with Veolia to provide the bus drivers to drive the Valley Metro buses.

The strike was between Veolia and the drivers who are represented by Amalgamated Transit Union 1433.

Source

Phoenix approves Veolia contract fix to help end strike

by Lynh Bui - Mar. 15, 2012 11:50 AM

The Republic | azcentral.com

The Phoenix City Council voted 6-2 on Thursday morning to amend Veolia Transportation Services' contract related to on-time performance costs, making way for a possible end to a six-day bus strike by Friday morning.

Veolia and the bus drivers' union, Amalgamated Transit Union 1433, struck a "handshake agreement" to end the strike late Tuesday night and spent Wednesday hammering out contract details for 640 Phoenix bus drivers that could settle a 22-month labor dispute. But the deal depended on whether the city would agree to reduce by hundreds of thousands of dollars the fees it charges Veolia for failing to run its bus services on time. The costs, known as liquidated damages, are not considered fines or penalties but rather an inducement for Veolia to provide on-time transit service. Phoenix withholds the money from its monthly payments to Veolia.

The company paid nearly $380,000 in liquidated damages from July to September 2011. Veolia officials have said they could gain enough financial breathing space to agree to a new contract with the union that increases pay and benefits for drivers if the city relaxed the strict operational standards.

On Thursday morning, the council voted to loosen the standards for how it charges Veolia for liquidated damages and now union members are voting on whether to accept the company's contract offer. Phoenix bus drivers are expected to vote from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday, with votes tallied by 7 p.m. If members ratify, bus service is expected to get back to normal Friday morning.

Bus service in Phoenix on Veolia routes was hovering around 26 percent of normal levels Thursday morning.

Council members voting in favor of amending Veolia's contract said they did so because it was a policy change the city had already been considering for months and because they hoped it would end the strike. Councilmen Jim Waring and Sal DiCiccio dissented. Vice Mayor Michael Johnson was absent from the vote; he was on a plane returning from a conference in Washington, D.C.

Councilman Tom Simplot said he felt the city's current standards for assessing liquidated damages were too strict and could put the city at legal risk. He was prepared to vote in favor of the item when it was first discussed late last year, he said.

But the strike that has stranded or inconvenienced tens of thousands of Valley Metro bus riders makes "the support of this change even more timely," Simplot said.

Councilwoman Thelda Williams also voted in favor of the contract change, though reluctantly.

She wanted to get the buses back on the road to serve the public, but "we are being manipulated and I don't like that either," Williams said.

Some council members were concerned that it looked like the city was paying Veolia to end the strike by relaxing standards for liquidated damages. Not only will Phoenix receive less money in liquidated damages because of the changes, but the city also will pay the company more than $700,000 because the amendments are retroactive to July 1, 2011.

"The implication is now it's the City Council's fault" for not ending the strike, Waring said.

The council was set to discuss the contract changes on March 21, but Mayor Greg Stanton moved the vote to Thursday in an effort to end the strike.

Stanton said the city had been discussing liquidated damages "separate and apart" from the strike and at the end of the day, ending the strike was about "helping the working people of this city."

About 310 Tempe workers are also on strike. ATU 1433 Financial Secretary Michael Cornelius said a sticking point remains with Tempe drivers' contract, including "drastically" higher costs for health care compared with Phoenix drivers. But he said union leaders want to allow drivers to weigh Veolia Tempe's proposal. If the Tempe contract is approved Friday, he expects Tempe bus service to be restored on Saturday.