TRI-CITIES, Wash. – The Ben Franklin Transit Board is considering hiring private-sector contract workers to make up for increasing community needs.
Right now people with disabilities can apply for BFT’s Dial-A-Ride service. The service is meant to help those who can’t use the regular bus system according to the BFT website.
The contract workers currently proposed would potentially fill in the gaps for currently overworked BFT Dial-A-Ride drivers according to Teamsters Union Representative Russell Shjerven.
He said those jobs should be going to more union workers instead of being contracted out which is why the union is working to negotiate a different solution with BFT.
“Bottom line is there’s a lot of overtime because for two years we told (the general manager) you need to hire more Dial-A-Ride drivers,” Shjerven said. “Dial-A-Ride drivers can be obligated to work overtime… we’ve had drivers working 23, 25, 27, 30 days in a row.”
At a board meeting on March 14, 2024 community members that use Dial-A-Ride voiced their concerns about the consideration to make more work contract work instead of trained BFT drivers.
“I don’t understand what you’re trying to do because you’re fixing something that’s not broken. Dial A ride is actually better right now than it’s ever been in the 20 years or so that I’ve been riding,” one person at the meeting said during the public comment period.
People at the meeting also they’re afraid these drivers won’t be of the same quality after hearing the current contracted workers for a different BFT program have left people at the wrong place and haven’t been trained to help people with disabilities.
“The Dial-A-Ride drivers are special and they have to be special to be able to take care of the variety of people that they take care of,” a different community member said at the meeting.
The next board meeting is April 11th.