Fitness For Duty Is Bad For Our Union

Back when we were being starved in the 2020 Contract, Presidents Hill and Dixon helped the CTA mismanagement insert Article 15.21 into the Collective Bargaining Agreement. This section is titled: "Fitness For Duty." (FFD)

None of the CTA workers asked for this thing. 

The seven paragraph article was jammed into the last few pages of the Tentative Agreement that was published. 

No union official could really explain it.

Read it for yourself below or access it in the entire 2020-2023 Collective Bargaining Agreement:

Essentially, this Article allows the CTA mismanagement to punish train operators—and other workers—for being overweight—or anything else they deem a liability to their bottom line. Thanks to the American Public Transit Association (APTA) for cooking up this anti-worker rubric. Learn more about this entire program from this seven page brochure at their website.

Our union presidents made it worse by letting it cover all of us. As you will see from APTA, it was original just for train operators.

APTA is not a government agency. It is a basically a "union" for public transportation agencies—not an ally for the workers in those agencies. You may recall APTA when they were praising CTA president Dorval Carter a few years ago. 

FFD should have never been allowed in our Contract. I am hoping we can eventually get it out. But it will take serious mass action on par with efforts to reestablish Two-Person Crews and Full-Time Jobs For All at the CTA.