Get OFF Your Butts, Portland!

A passenger joined us in the March on City Hall,
August 8, 2019, and this is what she penned
in honor of those who toil to give her
and others in Portland,
a safe have and ride.

It was a good march. Full of positive hope for a new future. We did not protest against anything. No cops or media needed, because neither showed up as predicted. We simply advocated for something we all need.

16 of us, strong and resolute, called for the passage of Oregon House Bill 2677, which languishes in committee, in lieu of a simple vote. It mandates that anyone who commits an assault of any kind upon one who works in transit, has committed a felony.

We addressed this growing tragedy, the few against the tyranny of one entity. So many of us have had our lives disrupted by those who, through mental illness, or by those simply empowered by the absence of a simple majority, use assault to further their own warped agenda.

We are punched, sexually assaulted, spit upon, threatened and denigrated to the point we wonder why we even sit behind the controls of our respective vehicles. Those employed to "manage" us do nothing in our support. Rather, they use every opportunity to paint us in the worst possible light while pampering those who do everything possible to assault us. Transit management does NOT support us in any way, no matter what words they use in their own controlled local media. We are quietly herded into corrals in which we are degraded for any action we take in self-defense, suspended, fired for simply defending ourselves. It doesn't matter billions of years of evolution require we defend our very heartbeat from the violence society has agreed is acceptable upon service workers. We're required, by district code, to resist human biology to save the district from costly lawsuits. It doesn't matter that our very lives are in danger: all that evidently matters is that their outrageous Standards Of Procedures are followed, damn the torpedoes and full fucking steam ahead. Our personal safety be damned: we must find superhuman power within ourselves to adhere to outrageously-impossible standards nobody else could ever hope to uphold.

I am so deathly afraid one of us will have to die at the hands of some crazy motherfucker before our own (un-elected and therefore transit-obedient) "Bored" of Directors, or transit-controlled local media takes serious notice. In these days of constant mass shootings and general mayhem, we all hide this fear, yet we continue on. It is something I think about every fucking time I prepare to drive a bus, and I'm sure it invades the thoughts of every one of my brothers and sisters who do the same. Every day, every moment we serve our community. However, I would bet our management has no idea what is on our minds when we prepare for our day. As long as their coffee is hot and computer spreadsheets are up and running as they sit at their comfy desks, our plight is easily forgotten. One day each year, they leave their cubicles to make-believe they "appreciate" transit operators, forgetting by the way the maintenance and supervisory or training personnel who share the daily chores of moving a city's populace. It makes them feel good to make this obligatory show of solidarity with those they assail on a daily basis. To us, it's just another show of obligatory bullshit we constantly endure at their constant behest.

Transit runs 24 hours a day, each day of every year. While management sits beside a warm fire on a winter's night, thousands of people are engaged in providing safe rides for the multitudes of those who depend upon us at that moment and around the clock. Our union brothers and sisters pull together in times of severe weather events, yet are rarely acknowledged for our heroics on and off the road. Maintenance personnel brave the coldest temperatures in raging ice and snowfalls to ensure our vehicles have chains to roll over the worst of street conditions. Trainers roam the streets in search of stuck buses and work diligently to free them of their icy bonds. Station Agents man the phones of emergency response lines for operators who are stranded. Sure, a few of the lowest managers are on hand in emergencies. Yet they're at the mercy of ignorant and ill-experienced upper management who have the power to wreak havoc due to their lack of brass-and-knuckles transit experience.

If management finds itself stuck upon an icy hill and unable to get to their appointed tasks, it either depends on us to get them there or they take a day off due to weather conditions. We're not allowed such luxury for fear of the dreaded "oversleep" for missing our daily assignments. If our driveways are encrusted with ice and the very attempt at getting our vehicles down the slippery slope are beyond possibility, we face the scrutiny of management for not making it on time to our appointed routes. It's a grossly-unfair anomaly we accept as those who make transit work in any community. Some of us walk over ice-encrusted sidewalks to the nearest serviceable bus or rail stop hours prior to our report time in order to ensure we're there to report on time for the route we're assigned. Others sleep at their respective garages, minus the comforts of home (which management fails to even attempt to provide during emergency situations), to make sure they are there on time to report for duty.


Those who make the wheels roll: operators, station agents, maintenance workers, dispatchers, trainers... have learned how to report to work under the worst of conditions no matter what the sacrifice. However, we're those who are largely-forgotten when it comes time to negotiate union contracts. All that remains important is the edict of upper management: give nothing, expect everything in return. Thanks, but no thanks. We're hardened to expect MUCH more than you're willing to give, wimps.

Our local media is silent. The Oregonian was given ample time to cover our event, but they stood down. Evidently, its own transit workers' safety warrants nary a beat reporter's attention. Not a peep from the pot-crazed Willamette Week, the money-weak Portland Tribune, the porn-controlled Mercury, the snob-crazed Portland Monthly, the intellectual-yet-distanced Oregon Public Broadcasting. Transit workers in Portland remain alone, only fractionally-organized among ourselves, and still fractured due to ineffectual union leadership.

It is time, here in Oregon and everywhere transit workers operate, that we STAND and shout from whatever heights we can attain, "STOP!" A few of us did today, and for that I retain hope that we can, and we will, prevail.

Today, we did: a precious few, devoted to our fellow brothers and sisters. From the Hawthorne Bridge, to City Hall and Pioneer Courthouse square in Portland, Oregon, we took actual footsteps in support of Oregon House Bill 2677. I need not describe the bill here. If you work in transit where I do, it is imperative that you also know what this bill calls for. Use that phone just inches from your face and do some actual research in lieu of checking the omni-present FB and Instagram or Twitter posts you're so addicted to. It's time to give attention to what you must, in order to survive.

To those who read my humble peckings on this abused keyboard, I implore you to reach out to your respective legislative representatives. Tell them to support OR HB 2677. If you didn't march with us today, this is your chance to join the fight.

We're tired of being disrespected and attacked from all angles. Please... show us your collective support.

In this call to action, I am your devoted
Deke N. Blue

P.S. Want me to "come out" from this pseudonym? Then let me know. You're too quiet, dear readers. You once roared with approval of my writing in your defense. Now? Your silence simply tells me you don't care any longer for what I have to say in your support. If so, I'm done. This is a call to action, and it's up to YOU.