The TWU, as we learned earlier this week, isn’t happy about the city’s plans to use dollar vans to replace shuttered bus routes. While the city and the Taxi & Limousine Commission are moving full speed ahead with a plan to privatize these bus routes, TWU President John Samuelsen has called these replacement offerings the Wal-Mar-tization of transit. The vans, he alleges, are unsafe and undercut union jobs and should not be embraced by New Yorkers looking for transit options after the MTA’s service cuts. But that isn’t stopping the MTA from offering its own dollar vans in Brooklyn come September.
The TWU says it has been selected by the TLC to run the commuter van service in Park Slope, The Wall Street Journal reported. The vans will run out my front door along the route of the now-defunct B71 from Prospect Heights through Park Slope and Carroll Gardens, and TWU Express, a non-profit subsidiary of the transport workers union, will operate the vans with TWU members behind the wheel.
Drivers will earn between $24-$26 — the going rate for union bus drivers — and will wear standardized dress that does not suggest an affiliation with the MTA. “Our plan is to have an initial fare of $1 to attract back the ridership on the line,” Arthur Schwartz, a TWU attorney, said. “We’ll adjust from there.”
There is but one catch: As it is trying to cash on the new routes, the TWU is also trying to sue the city in an effort to block this commuter van program. As first reported in The Chief-Leader earlier this week, the TWU has requested an injunction from a Manhattan judge against the TLC’s plan. “We’re playing both sides,” Schwartz said.
Ari Paul offered up a summary of the union’s position:
Union officials have long had a problem with so-called dollar-van services, arguing that they are lessregulated than publicly owned buses and that replacing transit service with small private companies was anti-union. Mr. Schwartz claimed in court Aug. 6 before Justice Anil Singh that the pilot program is unlawful, because giving one or several van companies exclusive access to former bus routes constitutes a franchise, which can be authorized only by the City Council. He also told the judge that the pilot program confused “for-hire” vans, which are not allowed to pick up passengers hailing vehicles off the street and are governed by the TLC, with “commuter” vans, which fall under the jurisdiction of the city Department.
The TWU is perfectly comfortable question the commuter vans as Samuelsen did in The Brooklyn Paper while angling to run a route themselves. It’s a politically feasible and smart strategy designed to keep union members working while showing how transit routes could be run in the city. “We’re going to offer trained bus drivers who have basic training, paid at union rate, the former bus driver rate,” Schwartz said to The Chief-Leader. “They’ll have health insurance and care a lot about their licenses because they’re going to want to go back to being bus drivers one day.”
For its part, the Taxi and Limousine Commission says the TWU’s bid has yet to be accepted officially, but David Yassky, the agency commission, seems willing to embrace the union’s plan. He said to WNYC that he would “love to have transit worker level service” as part of the commuter van pilot. Meanwhile, some union members are skeptical. “The union shouldn’t get involved with that,” Henry Feliciano, a bus driver in Manhattan, said to Paul. “They should try to get the jobs back.”
Sometimes, getting those jobs back simply involves a touch of creativity and a lawsuit at the same time.
23 comments
I think that it is very noble that TWU Local 100 is doing this act to try to keep these laid off bus drivers employed and bringing home a pay check every week. But from what I understand the laid off bus drivers only had to turn in the badge and EPIC passes, not their uniforms when they got laid off, because they will be brought back to work in september once school starts. Meanwhile the station agents that already got laid off or r getting laid off on Friday have 2 turn all property in to transit, including uniforms, which suggests that we won’t be coming back anytime soon,if at all. The only thing the union is trying to do 4 us is asking all members to agree to a $5.00 assessment that will be used to cover the cost of health care coverage 4 all union members in good standing that were laid off. I don’t know about u, but I would rather the union find a way for me to be employed, like they r doing for the bus drivers, instead of having them pay for my health care coverage. If u r healthy like me and do not use ur health coverage, the union is basically not helping me @ all. If worse comes 2 worse and I do get sick, I could more than likely apply for health plus or something and just pay $15.00 everytime I want to see the doctor.
This is either the dumbest (after the transit strike a few years back)or smartest thing the TWU has done to date. This seems to be a big gamble and quite possibly lead to breaking the union. Alternatively, and I find this difficult to believe, but the service could prove countless times more efficient than MTA provided bus service. Vans could be faster, stay closer to schedule. On the other hand, if the vans are too successful, the agrument from the other side could be, “See what you can do without 20 million work rules.”
The TWU plan seems to be the following
1) Price the service at $1 below the rate other dollar vans are charging to force the small operators out of business. No one can operate profitably at $1 a rider.
2) There is news that the TLC is thinking about allowing only one provider per old line. This will have bad effect. Many of the small companies may not have the assets to operate every single day. THis will drive up costs .
If the twu succeeds they and drives out small operators, they will cry for subsidies in a few years and the routes will be opbsorbed back into the mta.
The mta needs to get smart. We can not afford to run $700,000 buses on low volume routes and overnigts. That is a waste of a money.
But the main cost of the route is the driver, not the bus. Also, with smaller rroute, you lose the ability to interline runs.
The main cost of the route is fuel.
And what happens if feul reaches 2008 price levels again?
Are you sure? At average non-hybrid bus fuel economy, the cost of fuel is about $1 per mile. But vans consume less fuel than buses, so the cost would be less.
The TWU plans to pay $25 an hour
The buses don’t go 25 mph. They average more like 6.
He said the wages would be $25 per hour, not the speed.
I know what he said. If the cost of fuel is $1 per mile, then for fuel to be as expensive as labor, buses would need to run at 25 mph.
From what I heard, it was cheaper than that. Fuel costs the MTA about 70 cents per gallon (there was a big story a couple of years ago saying how one of their suppliers raised the cost of fuel from 20 cents per gallon to 70 cents per gallon), and the average bus gets about 3 miles to the gallon. The cost is more like 25 cents per mile, not a dollar. However, there are also factors to consider, such as wear-and-tear on the buses that add to the cost.
The TWU still doesn’t get it. It plans to price its service at $1 and “adjust from there.” Well, as soon as they “adjust” it to $2 or $3 or whatever, someone with a van is going to come along and start pilfering customers along the route for $1.
Dollar vans are great, or could be if not for one thing. I think it should be generally known that they discriminate in who they pick up. A friend from Ecuador was told by a dollar van when she called one that they do not serve non-Chinese people.
I think it should also be generally known that the native-born whites who complain the loudest about minorities discriminating against them are usually the ones who hate minorities the most. The amount of racist bullshit that gets posted on sites like Queens Crapper rivals that of VDare or Stormfront.
I have to think there are laws against such practices, and the customer has some sort of recourse against an operator like that. Say, the Better Business Bureau. But more importantly, I wouldn’t expect very many businesses to behave in such a manner because deliberately limiting your profits, and earning yourself a bad reputation in the process, are just monumentally stupid business practices.
“We’ll adjust from there.” Adjust to where? $5 per ride? At $25 per hour plus bennies for the drivers, not to mention the cost of the van and fuel and etceteras, how can this possibly work as a self-supporting enterprise?
I’m with all the skeptics above. It can’t possibly succeed as presented and I can’t believe the TWU people who dreamt it up could think it might, so I conclude and will believe until I’m shown otherwise that there’s something disingenuous, seriously cynical or even possibly dishonest going on here.
This is a pretty transparently cynical – but surprisingly inspired – attempt by the union to eliminate any possible competition. Even I am taken aback by the chutzpah. Of course they have no intention of making a “profit” – the whole point of the notion is that there are plenty of drivers willing to work for less than union wages. I’m not entirely convinced that actual private operators, with honest business plans, can turn a profit either, but it’s certainly worth finding out.
The TWU’s dollar vans won’t work, the will be defeated in court by the MTA (just as the MTA succeeding in laying off the token booth clerks) and people will continue to get in the regular dollar vans.
I suppose the TWU is counting on eventual subsidies.
Even driven legally, a van is more agile in traffic than a bus and might make better time on a congested route. But you can’t possibly pay a driver what he/she would get behind the wheel of a bus. After paying those strike fines, does the TWU have the money to subsidize this service for very long?
Maybe they feel that the reduced costs will be able to make these routes break even. Most of these routes were fairly cost-efficient (around $2-$3 per person), and with the right ridership increase and the right reductions in costs, these routes may not need to be subsidized.
The problem is that the dollar vans are forced to take over the routes in the same formations that caused them to face elimination. They aren’t allowed to extend these routes to serve more profitable destinations.
[…] disagreed, and now the Taxi & Limousine Commission will move full speed ahead. The TWU will run one of these van routes, and The Daily News has more on the one operator-per-line approach the TLC will soon establish for […]
[…] as an odd ending to an ongoing saga, the TWU has dropped its plans to operate its own TLC-licensed van with unionized bus drivers. The union had recently lost its lawsuit challenging the city’s […]