JH 31 LTD What does it Value?

LTD Values (Click to enlarge)

More of the Joe Hill LTD Project examination of the Strategic Plan.

LTD Values

The first value is TEAMWORK. Good golly what a farce. LTD is anything but teamwork. There is more intrigue and top down decisions here than anywhere that Joe Hill LTD Project has seen. "Working together makes sense" it says but how are they working together? We get orders from them and we follow them. Sometimes decisions are made without so much as a consult with our union leadership. Frankly, we are getting pretty tired of lip service of teamwork. Team LTD is an imaginary device to hold us down and make us willing thralls of the MAN. Not anymore for us, it can't be that way.

RESPECT evaporated before TEAMWORK. I don't know about you but I am tired of being treated like a child by supervisors. I am tired of Mary Neidig sending out five sentence memos to all employees and calling it an "update". I am tired of GM barbecues that are perfect for the office employees but not for those of us that work shifts at night, never report to the Glenwood parking lot or have such tight schedules in the shop that we have a hard time getting away on anything but our own lunch time. All this adds up to a lack of RESPECT.

RESPECT also means that people who ride our regular service should not be facing service cuts each year to build pie in the sky projects. Respect means that Taxpayers should not be paying one million dollars per bus for public transit. Respect means not wasting money of the community on stupid blue buses from a company in trouble before LTD even bought the buses.

HONESTY - This is a real hard one for the management. Honesty means you tell the truth. It means that you are open and forthright. Honesty means that the "rainy day" fund doesn't get transferred to the capital fund with the question by Ms. Hocken that it can always be returned if needed in Operations. Such a statement means we don't cut service but the management did not find an aggressive capital program they did not love. So they dishonestly told a member of the Board you are right we can always return it to operations. Did it happen? NO! Why? The Management spent the money!

INTEGRITY - This is such a tough one from Hamm that he has a little sign in his office to define it for him. Integrity means being committed to set of values or governing principles. LTD has stated their values and Guiding Principles. You read them and decide whether their is integrity in this system. As far as I can tell the integrity principles around LTD are firmly built upon a foundation of Jell-O.

ACCOUNTABILITY - This has been the toughest of the values for LTD to live up to for management. They push accountability down all the time in the form of warnings and discipline for union members, yet they can blow millions of dollars on bad ideas and projects and get completely away with it. Why? Because the facts are not discovered independently by the Board of Directors but are forever spun in a certain fashion so that they are part of the problem rather than the guardians of the public interest. The public interest means not cutting service, creating difficult labor relations and favoring one group of employees over another.

TENACITY - Here they win one. LTD is management is tenacious in their agenda. Taxpayers be damned. Union be damned. Riders be damned. Budgets be damned. Fairness be damned. LTD will win whatever the costs to anyone who gets in their way with their AGGRESSIVE CAPITAL AGENDA (their words here folks). LTD your tenacity has one Joe Hill and hopefully many others starting to look closely at you. We are citizens too. Some of us are taxpayers to the District. You have tenaciously forgotten us as an audience, and advocate. Fine, then if we do not like your plans, we elect to speak out about them.

So what values do I think really represent LTD Union members

Caring - LTD employees care about their jobs, customers, and their families.

Community - LTD employees are a community and are part of a community. We understand the needs of the community at large because we are the closest to it at LTD.

Stewardship - LTD employees understand that the transit system is mostly funded by taxpayers. For this reason we are considerate and careful with our equipment, our customers and our duties.

Diversity - We honor and respect the many faces and facets of different people that enrich our lives. Our customers are diverse. Our employees are diverse. We do not tolerate discrimination on any basis and seek to live by the golden rule.

Equality -We expect from each of us and to each other equal treatment. To our customers we treat each equally.

Honor - We honor the work of all from the least of us to the greatest of us. All work is honorable and deserving of recognition. We recognize that without all of us this system could not operate and meet its important community service duty.

How do I think LTD Managers should change their values to honestly reflect their agenda. Erase all the words and replace them with one.

HYPOCRISY

In Solidarity to our Union Brothers and Sisters

Joe Hill

JH 31