My Letter To Alderman Mosley

After attending a Town Hall meeting with Alderman Ronnie Mosley and sharing the suffering of CTA workers, he asked me to follow up with him. Here is the audio recording of what I said.

Below is the follow-up letter I sent to him via email on October 20th:

Greetings Alderman Mosley:

Thank you for listening to the grievances about our struggles as CTA workers a few weeks ago at the Woodson Library Town Hall.

Currently, if a CTA worker cannot go to work due to illness or family need for a day, we are punished with "Excessive Absenteeism" marks on our record. Six of these marks in one year will lead to termination. Each mark allows us up to 26 weeks of absence—unpaid for some and paid at about $200/week for those who are Full-Timers—but that is not real Paid (Sick) Leave. In order to have it, we must be out of work for seven days.

Those of us who do not accumulate the 1,250 hours required for FMLA privileges—such as new employees—usually end up fired.

Basically, CTA workers just come to work sick and injured.

As a union representative, I can confirm that the vast majority of punishment and terminations are related to this horrible sick leave policy.

We need Paid Leave as per the Illinois State Law at minimum. We should be rewarded with Paid Leave for attending work. Not punished for getting sick or needing a day off.

As a vocal supporter of human rights and democratic control of our union by the members, I have formidable enemies within our union leadership as well as CTA mismanagement. Simply put, they don't want it and tell us to be happy we have a job.

I have worked to rewrite portions of our Contract to improve Paid Leave. You can view them here: https://ericbasir308.blogspot.com/2023/01/cta-workers-paid-sick-leave-state-law.html

Please let me know what we can do to get the minimum Chicago City Ordinance or State Law. Yes, it will need to be Contractual. But there is no reason why it should not be the case for us at all.

--
Brother Eric Basir
Local 308 Union Steward
Local 308 Vehicle Maintenance Executive Board Member