They found the perfect operating company for this light rail scam

Metro Light Rail Operators Don't Have a Contract — Just Grueling Schedules and Smelly Passengers

by Sarah Fenske
Phoenix New Times

April 21, 2009

Last fall, 50 brave Valley Metro bus drivers gave up their stable jobs to take a chance on light rail.

Jim McCubbin (left) and Bob Bean, both officers with the local union representing rail operators, say they have serious concerns.

Many had been with the bus system for more than a decade. But the for-profit company that Metro Light Rail hired to manage the new rail system, Alternate Concepts Inc. (ACI), gave them a hard sell. With light rail, ACI said, drivers would enjoy shorter shifts, weekends off, a four-day workweek.

There would also be stability. Under federal labor laws, the new rail operators would be represented by the same union they dealt with as bus drivers.

"They told us, 'We're going to abide by basically the same contract,'" recalls one bus driver turned operator.

That was then.

Today, seven months later, there's still no union contract. That may not sound like a big deal — in Arizona, union protection is relatively rare. But for the drivers, not having it has led to a host of problems.

And we're not talking about working weekends. We're talking chaos. Everything from vacation time to health insurance is in a state of flux, drivers say.

More significant are their safety concerns. Operators are being asked to work serious overtime; they worry about falling asleep at the wheel. They're being asked to drive faster, too.

And most horrifying, they say, ACI has no policy in place for handling bodily fluids. Especially now that the city of Phoenix has sliced its budget for fare enforcement, transients are getting on the trains — some without shirts, others without shoes.

Passengers are peeing on the train.

And bleeding on the train.

And, in at least one instance, defecating on the train.

In other cities across the country, there are systems in place to pull a contaminated train off the tracks. But in Phoenix, trains just keep going.

"You get urine, you get regurgitation, and you'd think a supervisor would at least show up and stand by warning people until it's cleaned up," one driver says. That hasn't happened. "People just walk through it and track it all over the train." [Full story]

Photo by Victor J. Palagano III