11-27-50 Council Meeting Minutes

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REGULAR MEETING RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING CERTAIN PAYMENTS TO BE MADE TO SALARIED CITY EMPLOYEES. NOVEMBER 27TH. 1950 t rg3uj no • WHEREAS, the City of South Bend, Indiana, is approaching the close of its fiscal year, and WHEREAS, the office of the City Controller will be required to make pumerous payments and close its numerous and complicated accounts; and WHEREAS, it is desirable that the work of said office be simplified when possible; now, THEREFORE, be it resolved by the Common Council of the City of South Bend, Indiana: Section 1. That all salaried officers and employees of the City shall be paid their salaries for the month of December, 1950, on the 20th day of said month. Section 2. The Controller of the City of South Bend is hereby authorized to make said salary payments upon said date. Section 3. This Resolution shall be in full force and effect from and after its passage by the Common Council and approval by the Mayor. A. Kemper Member of the Common Council Councilman', Te llson made a motion that the resolution be adopted. Councilman Muszynski seconded the motion. Motion carried. REPORT OF TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE RELATIVE TO BUS SERVICE At the last Council meeting the Transportation Committee was instructed to secure facts pertaining to the bus situation in South Bend. Due to the fact that the Transportation Committee is not a board of arbitration to settle the difficulty between the company and its employees, no meeting was called butthe following facts have been obtained by the Chairman of the Committee. This information was secured by two meetings with the employees and two meetings with the officials of the company and shows no partiality, but obtained facts. In the early summer a Board of Arbitration gave the bus drivers a contract calling for 44 hours per week with a .141 an hour increase in pay and time and a half for over time. This contract also included 15 shop employees. The contract went into effect 7/15/50 and was signed by the employees and the company on 8/22/50. Twenty -eight days later the union tried to break the contract, but the company would not permit it. The 'reason the union wanted to break this contract was to re -open negotiations for an additional raise. At the present time the pay of the regular men is 73.71 per week or 3832.92 per year. As a result of failure to break the contract the union, who is not permitted to strike because of a bill passed by the last legislature put in to effect a program of agitation, such as being discourteous, not keeping up6n schedule and passing up passengers. The purpose of this is to create public sympathy. The company on the other hand laid off 17 employees.at the garage, 2 "A" mechanics and 1 "B" mechanic and the rest of the employees were cleaners. The union claims that this act has handicapped the repairs to the busses and the cleaning of them. At the present time there are 38 "A" mechanics and 3 "B" mechanics working in the shop. The company owns 125 busses, 54 of them have been purchased since 1946 and 20 - 45 passenger busses have been purchased and wilj�be delivered by January 15th, 1951. The total cost of busses since 1946 has been $1,330,000.00. The company had advised that the elimination of tokens has not made up for loss of patronage. For the first ten months of 1949, the company carried 18,685,000 people for the same period of ten months of 1950 they carried,17473,000 riders; a loss from 1949 to 1950 of 1,212,000.00 fares. The present rate of drivers is 1.51 per hour for the first six months; 1.532 per hour for the next six months and after that 1.56 per hour with time and a half fdr ever time. The company furnishes the uniforms and pays one -half on the pension plan. Since the failure to break the contract the union has forbidden the drivers to work overtime. Most of the regular drivers work 9 -1/2 hours per day and their week is complete about Friday. The average pay of the extra men has been about $36.00. This information was obtained from a report that the union president showed me. Another reason of dissatisfaction of the employees was that the regular men made $73.71 per week and before the union forbid over time some of the extra men made in the neighborhood of $100.00 per week. An attempt was made to ease the situation until after January lst, 1951 because the down -town merchants were disturbed because of the bus situation. The union agreed to these conditions, provided that the company would re -open negotiations at that time. The company on the other hand advised that they had made a contract with their employees and expected them to keep it. One chapter of the contract, page 8, paragraph 18, reads as follows: "Adequate service for the public and courts treatment of passengers is necessary for the efficient operation of the company's system ". In the contract between the bus company and the City of South Bend signed at the time of the elimination of the token, the bus company was permitted to use their summer schedule until September 1st. I have been informed that the winter schedule has not completely been restored even at this date. This report is not intended to show any favoritism to either side but to present facts to the Council to show why the public has not received the bus service they are entitled to. Councilman Tellson made a motion that the report be accepted and placed on file. Councilman Korpal seconded the motion. Motion carried.