Aug 19, 2008 7:00 am US/Central
Pace Bus Service Back To Normal
(Sun-Times Media Wire)
All Pace buses in the south suburbs are running as normal again Tuesday after 46 Pace bus drivers were absent from work with the "blue flu" Monday causing widespread delays and cancellations.
About 2 a.m. Monday, Pace officials began to be notified that about 10 percent of its 155 full-time drivers operating out of the South Division in Markham had called in sick, according to Pace spokesman Patrick Wilmot.
By 8 a.m. there were 46 drivers that called off and the action affected service on a dozen bus routes.
However, as of Tuesday morning, all Pace buses in the South Division were operating normally and no service delays were reported, Wilmot said.
The bus agency calls Monday's incident an illegal job action. "Once the job action became apparent, officials from Pace began working on plans to operate limited service based on available manpower," according to a release from Pace. Pace supervisory staff were dispatched to transit centers and other locations to assist riders.
Route No. 348, 753 and 452 were "completely out" Monday due to the call-ins.
"Each of these are short routes that connect with neighborhood Metra stations.'' Wilmot said.
In addition to those three routes, nine routes operated with reduced service in the evening, Wilmot said.
Pace South Division operates 28 routes in an area spanning roughly from Northwest Indiana on the east to Tinley Park on the west, and from the 95th Street CTA Red Line station in Chicago on the north to University Park on the south. South Division also operates express service from the South suburbs to Oakbrook, downtown Chicago, and the UPS facility in Hodgkins. Daily ridership on routes operated by South Division is roughly 26,000. "Many riders in this area are completely dependent on transit for their livelihood. These operators are placing the jobs and financial stability of thousands of people at risk." Pace Executive Director T.J. Ross said.
"We've been in communication with both the Amalgamated Transit Union's international office and Local 1028. Both deny sanctioning today's illegal job action, and the Local has committed in their response to 'doing everything possible to get the employees of Pace South back to work to accommodate the riding public'," Wilmot said Monday before operations returned to normal.
The Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 1028, rejected a tentative agreement with the drivers on Aug. 12, when it went to a vote and that "appears to have led to [the situation] today,'' Wilmot had said.
He also said that it was unclear exactly what the drivers wanted but that after the Aug. 12 negotiations, the union had been hoping to resume contract negations.
(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2009. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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