True story: Imagine that you have been doing 40-hour workweeks on night-shift, cleaning filthy trains, buses and stations, helping riders with information—but not getting any vacation, benefits or other perks that Full-Time Permanent workers.
It's a union job too.
Moreover, your union president is asking you to take time off to "lobby" politicians for funding because your employer has mismanaged the nation's second-largest public transportation system. If we don't do this, our union president says you may get laid off.
Every week you apply for Full-Time and Part-Time jobs with more security and keep getting turned down.
Then you get an email message that says CONGRATULATIONS.
Surely, after 14 months of loyal service, you will finally get that Full-Time Permanent job. Right?
WRONG!
You are being fired on June 28, 2025.
Terminated.
Laid off.
Replaced by more exploited people who will also be churned, burned (literally) and dumped on the street.
This is the fate of many exploited persons in the CTA's Second Chance "Apprentice" Program (SCP).
The SCP is a colossal failure. It must change. My proposals to change it for the better—and abolish it in its current form—are humane and achievable:
- Equalize punishment levels "discipline" to match all other CTA union workers.
- Stop denying them the right to file grievances regarding writeups about sickness, safety, behavioral and procedural violations.
- Rewrite Attachment O in our Contract to make the SCP a true apprenticeship program.
- Stop assigning the workers to tasks not covered in the Contract.
I am the properly-nominated and elected union representative for these poor workers (on the rail side). I need your assistance to defend them by signing and sharing this petition with everyone you know.
Like many of you, I want public transportation to be better in Chicago. However, it will never be better as long as the working conditions for the CTA workers are bad.
I am available for interviews and presentations for organizations and media. Contact me at 779-456-6460.