Demand Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel Rehire Fired ATU 241 Executive Board Member Erek Slater

Demand Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel Rehire Fired ATU 241 Executive Board Member Erek Slater

Update from today (02/18/16)

George Orwell could not have made this up…

On February 11th, much loved Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s appointed bureaucrats at the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) illegally fired me from my 10-year job as a city bus driver. They fired me because I was doing my job as an elected union steward and executive board member of the Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 241 protecting my co-workers and holding management accountable.

Yesterday, they tried to stop me from representing my co-workers in discipline hearings as I have done for the past year on Thursdays. We stood our ground and they backed down as our union lawyer officially filed unfair labor practice charges against the CTA with the Illinois Labor Board.

This morning, after we won a case reversing unjust charges against another bus-operator, the mid-level manager told me that he had been instructed by upper management to tell me to leave the workplace. If I refused to leave, police may be called to remove me as has been threatened before.

I spoke with my coworkers. I spoke to our union lawyer. He told me that the union is fighting this, but that the CTA is arguing that their policy is that an elected executive board member and union steward cannot be on company property unless he or she works for the company. So… they illegally fired me as a bus driver because I did union work and they are removing me from union work because I am no longer a bus driver. Ha!

But this is not funny…

Our bus garage alone services more people for public transportation than almost every city in North America. Now workers have only one part-time steward / bus-driver for 600+ working families. Being a union steward is a 24/7/365 job – it’s not part time. We get paid only “lost wages” for one day’s work – and we drive the bus the other four days. Now I am being prohibited from helping my coworkers at work even for that one day!

Since nearly every one of my co-workers is a leader of our families and in our communities, mistreating transit workers harms all of us.

Attacking workers’ democratic rights and rights to organize collectively leaves us all vulnerable.

Attacking the working conditions of public workers is an attack on our public services.

I ask you to contact the Mayor’s office and CTA to demand:

“Respect transit workers for the hard and import work they do. Hands off the workers’ union! Immediately return union steward Erek Slater to his job. Stop harassing and disrespecting our transit workers! The people are watching you!”

Copy and paste the message above and send it to the Mayor here: Letterforthemayor@cityofchicago.org

Or go to http://www.transitchicago.com/feedback/ where you can send a message with the paragraph above.

You can address your messages to:

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel
CTA President Dorval Carter
CTA (acting) VP of Bus Operations Derrick MacFarlane
(Last week it was a different VP…thank you for your phone calls and messages! The city changes managers like dirty diapers.)
CTA VP of Labor Relations Katherine Lunde

Please send resolutions of support from your union, organization or personal messages here: eslater@atu241chicago.org