Examiner Editorial: Muni suffers from mysterious driver malady
June 11, 2009
If your usual Muni bus doesn’t show up, it’s most likely on Monday or Friday. Those days at either end of unauthorized three-day weekends produce consistent spikes of drivers calling in sick or simply not bothering to show up for work.
On May 1, a Friday, nearly 22 percent of Muni’s 1,632 scheduled operators were “unavailable” — 132 called in sick, but no less than 112 just failed to report for their shifts. They were marked down as taking “unplanned leave,” a catchall category that also includes claimed injuries, suspensions or getting sick during a run.
The AWOL rate was even higher the following Monday, May 4, when 113 drivers didn’t arrive to start their routes. No-shows by Muni operators carry shockingly little risk of consequences. There is no automatic punishment for one-time shift hooky by drivers who don’t even call in with a fake excuse. The no-shows won’t be called into disciplinary proceedings unless their absenteeism becomes too frequent to ignore.
The Municipal Transportation Agency has historically been plagued by absentee drivers that sabotage the system’s on-time reliability by forcing the cancellation of scheduled runs and draining Muni finances by causing overtime costs for substitute operators. And right now is absolutely the worst time for Muni drivers to be taking unexpected time off whenever they feel like it. The City’s public-transit system needed to balance next fiscal year’s $129 million deficit by July 1. A highly controversial Muni budget package that raises fares and cuts service barely squeaked past the Board of Supervisors.
The transit agency’s contract with the Muni operators’ union includes an incentive program to reduce absenteeism by allowing drivers who accrue unused sick leave to cash it in for pay. But obviously this has not been helping much.
Muni spokesman Judson True said driver absenteeism is being steadily reduced by more focused efforts. Muni is doing a better job of tracking repeat users of convenient sick time and unplanned leave. Tougher discipline is being enforced against consistent AWOL abusers, with more suspensions and terminations being imposed.
In May 2008, Muni had a daily average of 36 missed runs, mostly associated with driver unavailability. But by last month, the daily missed-run average had dropped to 21. Undeniably that is an improvement, although it can hardly be called acceptable dependability.
Actually, it’s an embarrassment to The City that Muni rules even condone any level of unauthorized no-shows by drivers. Can anyone imagine a private business that would hand over a day’s pay to an employee who ditched work without calling in with a reasonable explanation?
