Another hard-working Second Chance coworker that the CTA is firing on December 29th told me that he applied for about a dozen CTA jobs over the year. 

All were declined. 

The CTA mismanagement whines about not having enough workers, but they refuse to make current Part Time Temporary and Second Chance workers Full-Time.

They are constantly firing workers who do no wrong!

Why?

They claim it is just a 12-month program and they have to let them go. But they don’t do that for all of them—which is good. 

They lie alot to my coworkers. Often they bounce the Second Chancers around between bus and rail locations, squeezing them for cheap labor for years—and getting away with all kinds of abuse and harassment. 

Churn and burn. Hire and fire.

This is a terrible program. A Second Class Program that perpetuates poverty and sells false hope to exploited men and women. It hurts our union and poisons our struggling Black and Latino neighborhoods.

They are called “Apprentices” but it is far from it. A real apprentice works 40 hours and gets benefits—as well as being paired with an experienced coworker (journeyman).

They work alone in dark railyards without radios or flashlights. They wash rail car exteriors with skin-melting chemicals. These are all violations of our union contract with the CTA.

Me and others call it for what it is: Slavery. 

We must change this program in the 2024 Contract or abolish it. I have created a revision for it and submitted it for Contract negotiations.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1njagLblmhyGLKJYlW99j2WO9mCFPi7eR6q_rvbxyHVw/edit

By signing the petition you can help make it happen.