This is a Fight for Our Future

Tue, 04/22/2014 - 10:25am

In Greyhound’s vision of the future, bus travel has no terminal workers, so they are cutting as many full-timers back to part-timers as possible. The company doesn’t care that their families can’t live on two days of work a week. Or that cutting service means unhappy riders. This dog bites every hand that feeds it – employees, passengers and the general public.

By President Jimmie McCoy

Terminal workers are afraid of losing their jobs. I don’t blame them. There was a time when Greyhound treated employees better, but those “good old days” aren’t coming back.

The company has new plans. In its vision of the future, bus travel has no terminal workers, and they are cutting as many full-timers back to part-timers as possible.

Greyhound doesn’t care that their families can’t live on two days of work a week. Or that cutting service means unhappy riders.

This dog bites every hand that feeds it – employee, passenger, the general public.

That isn’t a vision. It’s a nightmare! I think Greyhound really wants to reverse the last 60 years and bring back the conditions we faced in 1954. Good luck with that!

In my vision, the lowest paid and least appreciated workers across America are standing together and demanding respect and a $15 minimum wage. Terminal workers are fighting for an income they can raise a family on.

All Greyhound employees sacrificed during the lean years. For us, deregulation and company attacks have been 30 years of bad road. Today, we all deserve to enjoy the economic rebound in bus travel.

Every ATU Local 1700 member should support this fight. Solidarity is a two-way street: Terminal workers need a strong union now; drivers will need that same power of solidarity in the fight for highway safety tomorrow.