hawc
Senior Member
It's not like if you take away the union, you can suddenly pay operators a lot less. Given the problems they've had with retaining skilled operators, there's probably very little you can do with their wages, without creating a huge, expensive, problem.
Wrong again. Take away the union and you could definitely cut labour costs by 10% (or at least 5% and find 5% somewhere else). With unions you can't touch labour costs at all.
And I think the 'skilled operators' think their job is much more 'skilled' then it actually is. A teenager could do the fare collector job (not actually suggesting that relax). You don't need a 50 year old making $70,000 a year with full benefits and a pension to watch change fall in a box.
No tin-foil hats. No paranoia. Just fact. Sorry if it doesn't advance your side of the discussion.