No Muni 'Sickout' -- Yet

No sickout here...

​If Muni drivers do hope to pull off a "sickout," it's gotten off to an anemic start.

While an anonymous, all-caps flier urged drivers to call in sick en masse from yesterday to Sept. 17, that hasn't happened -- yet. Per the flier, "ALL TRANSIT OPERATORS WILL CALL IN SICK ON SEPTEMBER 14, 15, 16, & 17. ALL OWL OPERATORS SICK OUT ON MONDAY THE 13th."

Muni spokesman Paul Rose tells SF Weekly, however, that "everything is on a normal schedule." 

Rose doesn't yet have the number of drivers who called in sick this morning at his fingertips -- but, however many it was, it wasn't enough to make a dent. "It's a normal service day," says the spokesman.

The flier was decried by the Muni drivers' union and its author or authors have never stepped forward. While today's nonevent portends well for normal service throughout the week, Rose said it's too soon to jump to that conclusion. "They're all rumors at this point," he said. "No one's claiming the flier, so there's no real way to tell."

Among the demands on the flier:

"ALL STAND BY RUNS TO BE REINSTATED ASAP (OUR STAND BY RUNS ARE FOR OPERATORS WHO BEEN WORKING (sic) FOR MUNI AT LEAST 25 YEARS OR MORE. ASAP MEANS WITHIN 30 DAYS FOR A NEW SIGN UP)." Standby runs, essentially, are drivers often sitting around and awaiting an assignment that may or may not come. A May audit of Muni by the city's budget analyst, incidentally, found six Muni divisions in which drivers are spending more time on standby than actually driving. Eliminating this entitlement pay would save Muni an estimated $1.2 million.

Regarding city workers having to now pay to park while on the job: "THEY WANT US TO PAY $80 A MONTH FOR PARKING OUR CARS. NO WAY has JOSE GONE TO SAN JOSE."

And, finally, "IF WE DON'T COME TO WORK HALF A MILLION PEOPLE WILL NOT GO TO WORK ALSO. IT'S TIME TO USE OUR POWER. ... PLEASE TURN IN YOUR TRANSIT OPERATOR'S SICK LEAVE REPORT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE..."

You can read the flier in its brief entirety here: Muni Driver Sickout Flyer.pdf

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