Year: 2011

Home>News>2011

LOS ANGELES — A Thursday morning in February started like most for bus operator and UTU Local 1564 member Darwin Dawson — making fruit and vegetable protein shakes for fellow Division 18 workers as part of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s health and wellness program.
By afternoon, Dawson was standing on the set of the Jimmy Kimmel Live show in Hollywood, collecting $650 in cash from host Kimmel — and it had nothing to do with buses or fruit and vegetable protein shakes (the latter a southern California thing, so don’t ask).
So let’s back up and sit a spell for this yarn, as Dawson is one fascinating fellow.
It begins in the garage of Dawson’s home in Redondo Beach, which he converted to a private sports bar for his friends and family. On display everywhere were old leather football helmets, antique cleats, brightly colored neon beer signs, five television screens — a memorabilia laden man-cave if ever there was one.
And, somehow, there was room for Dawson also to restore vintage Chevy pick-up trucks — the source of cash to keep those friends and family in beer and pretzels during Angels, Clippers, Dodgers and Rams ballgames.
Somehow, some hard-to-find ’49 Caddy parts found their way into the garage — the source of a barter that would lead to the Kimmel show. But let’s not get ahead of this story.
Some years back, in exchange for hard-to-find ’49 Caddy chrome bumper and other parts, Dawson acquired a 100-pound, 6’7″ fiberglass statue of basketball legend Michael Jordan, which fit oh so well in the home sports bar a/k/a Dawson’s garage.
Man-caves can change, and when Dawson decided it was time to redecorate — from a sports bar motif to an auto/bus motif — the Jordan statue become surplus. So Dawson put it up for sale at $650 on Craigslist.
Then came the call from producers of the Kimmel show. Kimmel wanted the statue as a gift to present Jordan on his birthday.
So, with help from Dawson’s 12-year-old son, into a Dawson-restored ’68 Chevy pick-up went the 100-pound statue, and down the road went Dawson and his son to the Jimmy Kimmel Live set in nearby Hollywood — a building but 100 yards from the route of the LACMTA bus Dawson drives.
In his driver’s uniform — at Kimmel’s request — Dawson gained his few minutes of national fame, selling the statue to Kimmel not for the $600 Kimmel offered, but the $650 Dawson insisted on receiving.
Hey, he’s a UTU brother, and UTU brothers and sisters don’t let even the Jimmy Kimmels of the world get the better in negotiations.
Basketball fans may notice something amiss in the photo. Yes, Jordan’s jersey shows #32, not the #23 Jordan wore with the Chicago Bulls.
Kimmel noticed that discrepancy, and Dawson had the answer. The statue was never “authorized” by Jordan — as were the legendary Nike Air Jordan shoes — but was created in the Philippines, perhaps by a dyslectic sculptor of knock-offs.
While insomniac Americans watched Dawson on Kimmel’s late night show, Dawson was sound asleep. He begins his day with the LACMTA at 4 a.m.

Late-night television host Jimmy Kimmel, right, pays UTU member Darwin Dawson for the Michael Jordan statue seen in the background.

Tags bus operator, Darwin Dawson, LACMTA, man-cave, sports bar

PHOENIX — The UTU’s Arizona State Legislation Board and UTU members participated in a lobbying day at the Arizona state capitol here to protest the attack in numerous states on collective-bargaining rights, the right to join a union and payroll deduction of union PAC contributions.
The Day of Action was held in conjunction with other AFL-CIO unions, and was termed “the most successful lobby day” in Arizona labor history, said UTU State Legislative Director Greg Hynes. Dozens of UTU members participated alongside hundreds of brothers and sisters from other labor organizations
“All our members who attended either met with state lawmakers or delivered packets to their offices,” Hynes said. The lawmakers were urged to vote against 20 separate anti-union bills being considered by the Arizona legislature.
The union brothers and sisters intend to continue their lobbying campaign in person and through Internet websites. Additionally, each union member participating filled out 10 postcards to be mailed to fellow union members.
A highlight of the day was the signing of a solidarity banner to be sent to Wisconsin public employees, who are the target of legislation in that state to revoke their collective-bargaining rights.
All UTU members paid their own way, Hynes said, sending a loud voice of protest to Arizona lawmakers and those in other states who are mounting an attack on labor that, according to public polls, is not supported by a majority of Americans.

UTU members participating in the Day of Protest in Phoenix this week include, from left, Assistant State Legislative Director David Shearer (UTU Local 807), State Legislative Director Greg Hynes and Local 807 Vice Local Chaiperson Dan Torres.

WASHINGTON — Railroads soon will be required by the Federal Railroad Administration to establish toll-free telephone numbers to allow the public to report malfunctioning highway-rail grade-crossing warning signals, disabled vehicles blocking crossings and other unsafe conditions at crossings.

The rule is required by the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 and will go into effect following a 60-day public comment period.

Under the proposed rule, once the railroad receives a call about an unsafe situation, train dispatchers and crews in the area would be notified immediately of the unsafe condition in an effort to avoid an accident.

The proposal to establish emergency notification systems would require railroads to post a toll-free telephone number and the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Crossing Inventory identification number at every highway-rail crossing and explicitly authorized pathway grade-crossing.

Currently, major Class I freight railroads and major passenger railroads have some type of system in place by which they receive notification of unsafe conditions at grade crossings.

However, said the FRA, not all smaller railroads have such a system in place. Based on National Crossing Inventory data, the proposed rule would affect 211,401 highway-rail and pathway grade-crossings on 594 railroads.

WASHINGTON — Mexican buses and trucks operated by Mexican drivers would be permitted to cross into and travel through the United States under an agreement reached March 3 between President Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

Congress, however, must approve the agreement, with details to be worked out between Mexico and the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration should Congress approve the measure.

The Mexican vehicles would be required to meet U.S. safety and environmental regulations, and Mexican drivers would be required to demonstrate an ability to read English.

In exchange, President Calderon said Mexico would lift punitive tariffs against dozens of U.S. manufactured products, making it easier for U.S.-made goods to be sold in Mexico. Those tariffs are adding some $2 billion annually to the cost of U.S. goods imported into Mexico, according to U.S. officials.

Tags buses, Calderon, Mexican buses, Obama, tariffs

In the face of an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showing 62 percent of Americans oppose revoking collective-bargaining rights for public employees, the Ohio Senate March 2 moved to repeal the core of those rights for Ohio state employees.

The New York Times reports the measure will clear the Ohio House of Representatives — having a sizeable Republican majority — and that Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich will sign the bill.

The newspaper calls the action nothing less “than a near complete dismantling of public-worker protections that have been in place in Ohio since 1983.”

In a close vote, the Ohio Senate voted 17-16 in favor of passage — with six Republicans joining all Democrats in opposing the measure.

The bill outlaws strikes for any public employee, removes health care insurance from any form of bargaining, eliminates binding arbitration for law enforcement and firefighters, and establishes, for all Ohio public employees, fact-finding bodies to make recommendations that, if rejected, allow a school board, city council or legislature to impose its own last/best offer.

In other words, the employer gets to determine the outcome of negotiations.

The president of the Fraternal Order of Police told the Columbus Dispatch newspaper that the bill “ensures that no employer has any reason to bargain in good faith … because they get to dictate the terms at the end.”

UTU members — and many UTU International headquarters staff in North Olmsted, Ohio, who belong to the Office and Professional Employees International Union — joined thousands of union and non-union workers over the past two weeks demonstrating against the measure outside the Ohio legislature in Columbus.

While the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll also showed that a majority of Americans support public employees paying more for health care and retirement benefits, public-employee unions in Ohio and other states already have indicated a willingness to grant states concessions, belying allegations of those Republican-controlled state legislatures and their Republican governors that they want merely to balance state budgets.

Union busting clearly is the intent. Ohio Democrats say they will push for a voter-referendum to repeal the bill.

Somewhat troubling in the poll is that Americans’ perception of private-sector and public-sector labor unions is lukewarm — with just 38 percent of respondents indicating a “positive” or “somewhat positive” impression of both private-sector and public-sector unions; and an almost equal number having a “somewhat negative” or “very negative” impression of labor unions.

The assault on public-employee collective bargaining continues in Indiana and Wisconsin.

The New York Times reports that in Wisconsin, “a standoff over legislation that would cut collective bargaining rights for public employees intensified. Democrats in the state Senate, who left Wisconsin last month to prevent a vote from taking place, learned that the Republicans left behind were taking steps to start fining missing lawmakers $100 for each day they stay away.”

In Indiana, the Indianapolis Star newspaper reports that the standoff, where Democrats have left the state to block House Republicans from passing anti-union legislation, continues.

And in Arizona, where the legislature is considering 20 anti-union bills, the UTU’s State Legislative Director Greg Hynes spoke out after 59 Republican senators and house members signed onto a resolution supporting Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s union-busting agenda. “It is essential to the democratic system [that] workers should always have a voice, and to take that away is not American,” Hynes told the media in Phoenix.

UTU HQ employee Carl Morgano at a pro-worker rally in Columbus, Ohio