NYC Transit ordered to use bus dispatchers on overtime; could cost millions

[Harry]

More than $1 million a year may go down the drain because NYC Transit has been ordered to use bus dispatchers on overtime - even when others can work on straight time, the Daily News has learned.

 

The arbitrator of a labor-management dispute in Queens recently ruled the dispatchers' contract is silent on how weekend bus shuttles can be staffed.

 

So the agency must stick to what it has done for more than 20 years: Fill shuttle posts with workers who volunteer to work more than 40 hours per week for higher pay rates, contract arbitrator George Nicolau said.

 

Looking for savings, NYC Transit last year began assigning shuttle posts to underutilized workers not assigned regular routes, a move challenged by a dispatchers union.

 

The "very unfavorable" decision means NYC Transit "literally can have a dispatcher...with no work to do but we cannot assign that dispatcher to shuttle work," NYC Transit President Howard Roberts recently wrote to MTA board members.

 

"Instead we have to leave that dispatcher idle and bring in another dispatcher on overtime to supervise the shuttle work," he wrote in the letter obtained by The News.

 

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/09/15/2009-09-15_ot_ruling_may_cost_millions.html#ixzz0RBFl8XM6

[4 Train]

Very interesting read Harry!! :tup:

[Locomotion69]

I wonder what DevilBus 65 take is on this, even though he is a dispatcher for MTA Bus. Just a few months ago I heard over my scanner radio that there wasn't going to be anymore OT for TA dispatchers and they were grumbling about it. Things must have changed since then. You do need supervision out there to keep everything in order.

 

I wonder how many dispatchers are on the TA payroll. The console dispatchers in my opinion have it easier, sitting inside an office instead of being outside in all kinds of weather dealing with the public, etc.

[Q25toJamaica]

The picture makes me lol

[DevilBus65]

I can understand why the Authority has a problem with this. They have many people to supervise and they don't have the supervisors assigned to cover all that they need to. They don't make use of everyone so it's idle workers who are to blame. What a crock.