Bus riders’ union?
Barbara Black, president of Service Employees International Union, Local 2000, talks about the effects of potential bus service cuts or fare increases today outside Metro headquarters.
ST. LOUIS - Fearing the effects of lost bus routes and fare increases on the working poor, a group of ministers and employee groups are creating a bus riders’ union.
Ken McKoy, an organizer with the faith-based Metropolitan Organizations Strengthening and Empowering Society (MOSES), said today that the Metro transit agency should consider other steps to balance its budget.
“I just think it’s unfair that transit-dependent people, that poor people have to continue to bail this agency out,” McKoy said during a morning rally held outside Metro’s headquarters in Laclede’s Landing.
The group is circulating petitions on Metro buses - including the Grand and Kingshighway buses - asking passengers to join the bus rider’s union and deliver a message: No to fare increase and no to route elimination.
Representatives of the faith-based group also plan to attend Metro’s May 30 board meeting, when the transit agency considers a budget for the year that starts July 1. Metro leaders have warned that the agency may have to increase fares or cut service if it doesn’t find a new source of funds soon.
“We’re saying this time, we’re not going to just sit back and bail this agency out,” McKoy said. “This agency needs to figure out a way to become solvent.”
McKoy said Metro is enjoying a resurgence amid the runup in gasoline prices. He asked Metro how much money it made “as a result of that explosion of ridership.”
Metro President and CEO Robert Baer said the agency doesn’t want to raise fares or cut service but may be left with little choice. Metro faces a shortfall that could surpass $19 million during its 2008-09 budget year.
“The reality is that we have to live within our budget,” Baer said. “If there is not a new revenue source found from someplace - be it a county tax or (the state of Missouri) - we will have to be faced with cuts and fare increases.”
St. Louis County voters will likely be asked in November to consider a half-cent sales tax to support public transportation. Half of the proceeds would go to operations and the other half to developing new MetroLink light-rail starts in the county.
Passage also would trigger collection of a quarter-cent sales tax that passed in the city of St. Louis in 1997 but has never been collected.
Transit advocates say they will continue to press their case. The riders’ union won’t be a union in the traditional sense, but will provide bus riders a collective voice and “a real say-so in public transportation policy.”
With the rising cost of gas, low-paid workers - even if they do own a car - are being forced to park those cars and take transit.
“With the cost of gas, there has to be some kind of outlet developed for people who cannot afford to drive cars,” said Barbara Black, president of the Service Employees International Union, Local 2000 in St. Louis.
Black said the shortage of transit options is particularly difficult on weekends, when buses run less-frequently. Sometimes it requires a supervisor who will allow a transit-dependent worker to arrive a little late.
“With this cut, it’s going to be even more difficult for these people to get to work at all,” Black said.
(18 votes, average: 2.83 out of 5)
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Metro has static revenues and rapidly-increasing fuel prices. Unlike the feds, they can’t print their own money, so they only have two options, cut service or cut wages. Am I to assume that, with this position (”No to fare increase and no to route elimination”), the SEIU is in favor of cutting the wages paid to unionized Metro employees?! I thought not. . .
If these riders want to preserve (and hopefully expand) service levels, the best thing they can do is make a case to the voters on why taxes should be increased to support Metro. With taxpayers picking up ¾ of Metro’s budget (and only ¼ coming from fares riders pay), the ONLY way to have “No fare increases and no route elimination” is to find more tax revenues, and pleading poverty and hardship, even when it’s the hard truth, doesn’t play well with many suburban taxpayers.