>> good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. welcome to the june 3rd meeting of the san francisco municipal transportation board of directors and -- read the role. >> trekter brinkman speaker: present. >> heinicke. >> present. >> director nolan. >> present. >> rubke. >> and lee and ramos will be join us today but you do have a quorum. please be advised that the use

of cell phones, pagers and soundproof electronics are prohibited and any responsible for one going off may be asked to leave the room. in the -- be advised that cell phones set on vibrate causes problems. >> motion to approve. >> second. >> any further discussion, all in favor say aye. >> communications. >> item 5, communications. mr. chairman, directors be advised 10.2 h was removed from the agenda at the request of staff. in addition, they'll be no discussion of anticipated litigation in closed session. >> thank you. >> next item. >> item 6 is the direction of unfinished business my board members. >> i'd like us to adjourn in the memory of jim. jim was the deputy director of san transfor many

years. a really good guy. with your consent, adjourn in his memory. the second is unfinished business. the last meeting, mr. rivals was here talking about 24th street and the over size vehicles and we got a letter from him this past week as i recall. [inaudible]. do we have any update on that mr. rubke. >> he looked through that matter. >> good afternoon, chairman, nolan directors, mr. rubke, we did look into that. that's in the port jurisdiction. there's a lot of trailers parked there by a contractors. we reached out to the port and the contractor, notified it's illegal to park then between midnight and 6:00 a.m. and took some initiatives. we've now warned

them that effectively immediately, we're going to cite any violators so that should help rectify the situation. >> did you inform him of that? speaker: no, i did not. >> i need his contact. >> he runs metro cab and is well known to the taxi cab agency, so it's great that he got back to our community that fast. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. >> any other business? seeing none. >> 7, director's report. >> good afternoon, chairman and nolan and members of the board and the public and staff. first i'm going to on do a couple of employees recognitions as we do at the first meeting of each month and i would like mr. robins so return back. >> it's my pleasure to introduce zeer, street construction within the streets division who is responsible from the safe path

of travel program. a little bit of background. when a contractor need to work on the street or the sidewalk, he has to go through a permit process, and construction routing group provides him with criteria on where he can block traffic, where he can block the sidewalk, so that traffic, bicycles, transit and those with disabilities and pedestrian can travel through the work zone safely. that requires a lot of enforcement. his role is to visit these construction cites and insure that safe work zones and adequate pass of travel are available for all users. he enforces contractor compliance with a traffic control requirement to provide -- to ensure public safety. he has been working with the city for 23 years and he has experience

with difficult situations and revolving conflicts. he responds promptly from complaints from the city staff or from the public due to -- he takes appropriation action to rectify the situation. he inspires and maintains positive working relationships with the public, with contractors, and partner agencies through his ted cajun, thoroughness, flexibility and enthusiasm. he's a great asset to the ssfta and the city as a whole and he's brought family members today to help celebrate. thank you. >> come forward. >> congratulations on behalf of the board from your outstanding work. and we'd like to meet your family. on the right is my

wife. we're newly weds. two years. my mom, my stepson. stand up. my niece iza and they're from new york. >> glad you came. [ applause ] >> i want to say thank you to the board for acknowledging this and taking the time. i'd like to thank a few other people. nor man wong is my supervisor in the back. if he doesn't answer my phone calls everyday, contractors would probably get [inaudible]. he's like my lifeline when i'm out in the field and i need to make difficult decisions, he's always there at the me. also, i'm not sure if brian is here. brian is my section manager. he's a big part of this program as well and i'd like to acknowledge him. and thank you to everybody else that showed up. all my friends and families and jerry for your great presentation.

>> thank you. [ applause ]. >> next i'd like to ask our enforcement director cammy to come forward to recognize extraordinary action by one of our great parking patrol officers. >> good afternoon, chair, person nolan and rubke. on behalf of the enforcement team, i'd like to express my thanks and present a special recognition to parking control anthony lee. on thursday, september 26th of last year, parking control officer anthony lee went beyond the call of duty. when he assisted a woman who was being assaulted. he was patrolling his route when he came upon a vehicle collision at

the 1100 block of lagoona street. and he noticed a man standing near the party involved in the collision and he asked them to step away if he wasn't involved in the accident or did not witness the accident. and the individual complied by stepping away but did not leave the area. pcl had both parties exchange information and went back to patrolling the area. as he continued on his route he heard a woman screaming calling for help. the calls were coming from the area he left. lee observed the woman involved in the collision being assaulted by the man who he repeatedly asked to step away from the collision. lee drove back to the 1100 block of laguna and yelled at the man to stop. the man did not comply and continued to

aggressively assault the woman. and lee put himself between the two and separating them. and at that time the man fell backwards onto the ground. the woman was lying on the sidewalk in a daze and semi unconscious state and he told her not to move. on behalf of the division, i would like to thank lee for his quick reaction, hero i can act. if lee had not reacted and got involved in this incident, the woman possibly could have opinion more seriously injured. it should be noted that the woman sent a nice letter of appreciation to lee thanking him for saving her life. so we're proud to have lee as a member of the enforcement team, and i'm extremely pleased

to present you a special recognition today. lee, come on up. [ applause ]. >> con -- congratulations mr. lee for your work and the work you do everyday. you have your family members here. >> i have my immediate family, my wife and my son kobe. i have my mother teresa, my grandmother, edna. i have my in-laws, collin and lewy. i have my brother and sister in-law creg and elaine. >> thank you. [ applause ]. >> thank you board for the recognition and this award. >> well deserved. thank you,

sir. [ applause ]. >> thank you mr. chair. so i wanted to start by just acknowledging the last couple of days have been extraordinarily difficult days for muni riders but many in the city has been impacted by the sick out that has happened starting yesterday morning where it's unfortunate, not a good couple of days for the city and for muni but we're grateful for the patience of our riders. some of the feedback we've gotten acknowledging the great work of the operator who's have come to work and rest of the organization whose salvages and tried to support the service has opinion tremendous. the muni riders

are a resilient bunch and grateful for them. a great effort by john and his staff within transit and can disand communication and jerry and his staff and enforcement. really folks coming together to minimize the impact. because of how muni is to this city, the last couple of days has been difficult for all of san francisco so i'm grateful for what our employees have done, those who will work and particularly for our riders. it's particularly frustrating because we as an agency have been negotiating in good faith with transport workers union, and local 258 that represents the operators and we have negotiated with all of the rest

of the collected bargaining units that represent our employees. i did want to clarify a few things that have been entirely clear. it's clear everybody that stuck out is an illegal action. it's illegal in many different places, but including in the existing collective bargaining agreement we have with the transportation unit. there's no strike clause, but it -- we have reached out in writing to the union and to operators informing them of that and the consequences of that. we are starting to see a little bit of turn around in terms of attendance coming around and prospects look optimistic, but tomorrow should be much better,

but i know there's been significant hardship in the meantime. but in terms of a couple of things that have not been clear. the first is the city charter prescribes a process under which all collective bargaining is done for the city and county not special to this union or to muni but for all the labor organizations with whom we have collective bargaining union. that process is that we negotiate in good faith until we go to in pass and enter into mediation and that's governed by a panel that consist of three members and one pick by the city and one by the union and one neutral and out of that mediation process for any items that have not been agreement upon, the

-- it was not the mta proposal or the union's proposal, but what came out of that mediation process that ended up in an all day mediation a few weeks back that ended with a recommendation that included the wage increases that are apart of that agreement, a number of other changes as well as a retirement swap. what we call requirement swap, which is the second thing that i think has not been clear in the media and even to the operators and i think it has been unfortunate, i think the operators have opinion given bad guidance in terms of understanding this process and in terms of understanding the substance of what was put before them to vote, so i've

asked the city's director of human resources to give some perspective and explanation on this retirement swap issue because it seems to be coming down to a key issue that's of concern to the operators that i don't has been communicated well to them. i don't think that the public understands it, so with your lead, i'd like to ask our director to explain how we got to this point and why we're doing this. >> director callahan. >> good afternoon, mr. president. commission members, thank you for the opportunity to be here today. what we call the pension swap or the retirement swap is fairly complex so i'm here to hopefully clear the air and make sure that everybody understand what it is and what it entails. i want to start -- forgive me if i'm telling you things

you already know, but i want to start with the fact that we have a defined benefit pension. there's two pieces to -- two ways that money goes into the pension fund. from an employer contribution and from an employee contribution. the employ contribution is standardized at 7.5 percent, that's the basis contribution and the -- that currently is for our next fiscal year, maybe an effective contribution for the employer including the mta and a quarter percent for the employee percentage. last year it was as low as zero. the pension -- back in the late 90s throughout the city including mta workers, the city reached agreement in lieu of wage increases to pay

the employee portion for employees so if of the two pieces, the employee said in a tigs -- we would pay the employee portion. the thinking behind it was you get more money impact for the -- in your pocket for the same outlay from the employer. it's because it's pre-tax so it's relief from the pension contribution from the employees and have the increase of take home pay. that was the standard for several years, and then when there were concessionary periods, it went back and forth. sometimes the employer was paying the employee's portion called mpnc and sometimes the employees were paying that. all of the city contracts including mta's had an ending of that concession, of the concessions where the employees

were paying their own contribution in 2006. in 2006 the city took the position or offered the employee groups to instead of having the city resume an employer paid member contribution of seven and a half to give a wage increase cost equivalent to the employer, so slightly lower number because for every dollar that we give in wages, we must payroll up costs, he call them. worker's comp and social security and pension. so it's a salary sensitive items that two up, so for -- that's why the cost equivalent cost to the employer for that employer is less than the pension contribution. this is offered to our labor groups and in 2006 they started agreeing to it. reason they

started agreeing to it because it increases their salary. the salary upon with i their final pension is based is going to be higher by that additional money, that raise they get. it's a higher base rate for future raises built on and they'll see the benefit in overtime and in premiums so that's why the unions wanted to agree to it. from the city's perspective or the employers perspective, people aren't seeing it. we want people to see how much money we're spending. i have documents here and they're technical so i'll provide them to the secretary and give them out and

i'll be happy to answer questions but the number that's neutral to the mta which we assess them in deriving is the seven and a half percent by the employees by their own pension plan and they'll siefb a point 05 increase in their salary. the reason for both employer and employ agree to it. my understanding is that it was apart of the mediated agreement. we agreed to it and presented it to the members and it's possible that some confusion about the relative benefits of the -- of this change would be to the employees and so that's my intention is to clear the air. it's a fairly complex issue, so i'm happy to answer questions and if you would like me to go through the elements i can do that as well. that's another piece of information -- the last group setting aside the operators and possibly the

supervisor, some of the supervisors at mta. the last city group to have an employer paid member contribution of any size is a registered nurse and on thursday night, they agreed to discontinue it. from the city perspective, it's a standard to have employees to pay into the pension, to pay the pension contribution and in fact, that is public policy, the state of california. there has been pension reform locally and state wide, the public employee pension reform that went state wide and effects most other agencies and does include preventions for ending of the employee payment and having employees participate in their part of the pension. so i hope that was helpful and if not, i apologize, you i'll be happy to answer questions. i do have our city

compensation member here. speaker: thank you very much. that was helpful. i'm not sure if this question is for you or director riskin. do we have a message to reach out to clarify this to the employees or has that somewhat already happened because as you said, the concern is it's confusing and i know as an employee as a large corporation, it can be confusing to figure out the benefits. i hope we have a good method do we need to rely on the union to clarify on that. >> i'll weigh in because that's what i do. there's limitations of what an employer can do in terms of communicating to employees during bargaining. it's direct dealing which is when you go around the union to go to the employees but this is public information of what i just described and i believe

the press is reporting on it but i believe with he have to be careful in terms of what we say directly to the employees. >> right. >> heinicke. >> i have a question which i think is for director riskin. these last few days have been madding. it's very important that you thank the workers who did come to work despite that and i'm glad you did that and it's a continue sign of your positive leadership. and explaining what the true facts here is really good. you did clarify that this sort of coordinated sick out is illegal, which it is and i understand that the agency is taking the view that these days won't be compensated unless the operators can prove that there was -- that they were ill with a doctor's

note or something like that, and i'm glad we're doing that. i will say personally i'm not sure that simply denying pay for this illegal act alone is enough especially if this continues or happens again. and so my question or request of you is could you and the city attorney look into and report back to us whether it's an open or closed session on what additional discipline is available to you and to we as the heads of this agency especially if this continues to happen again. what discipline is available to someone who uses a sick day when they're not actually sick and when it appears that's part of an illegal labor effort. that would be useful information to us and i'd ask that you get back to us on that. >> yeah, i'd be happy to do so. >> so i guess just to summarize, if there are no more

questions, what is -- the point of the negotiation is now is what was arrived at through a mediated process with both parties and the retirements swap or pension swap is basically trading the cost of the mta pays the employees contribution, instead stopping -- swapping and having the employee pay the employee's contribution and the mta pays the employees portion but compensate in salary to what our cost has been for paying that. it's an even swap for us, it's more money in the pockets of the operators which as director callahan said, means the higher base for a retirement, higher base for overtime, for premiums, for future increases so i think

those things have not been at all clear to the operators and the public and i think it's important that we wanted folks to understand that that's what's on the table. so the next step in the process is arbitration. the operators did bring this to a vote and they rejected it. there was an arbitration scheduled for saturday and we will be at that arbitration hoping to get final ruling from the arbitrator which per city charter would be binding. if no more questions on that, i want to thank director callahan and steve who has been helpful to us in this process. >> i would like to say a word on the whole thing if i may. just in observation, someone who rides the system everyday, i'm profoundly aware of how vital this system is to so many people. for some of us, it's an inconvenience and for

some of us, it's a crisis and i hope everybody is aware of that. you see people there who would not be able to go anywhere without it. and i hope to see arbitration -- i hope this is all over today, but the arbitration is over and back to work full-time next week. thank you callahan. >> that was really just focusing on one bargaining unit, but what we're doing here today is another requirement that i believe is in the city charter which is to publicly disclose the agreements with are we have concluding the negotiation process before you consider them for a vote. we had seven agreements in total that we were bargain and we participated in the additional ones with the city. but we had seven of our own, three of them were transport workers

union units. the operators which we discussed, the fare inspectors and the supervisors and managers. we also were negotiating with sciu, local 1021 and the association local 1414 and ibw local 6, the electricians and the municipal executive associations so those groups represent -- sic represents pco and station agencies and car cleaners, a lot of the administrative staff, 1414, represents a lot of the mechanics, local 6 represents electricians and mea represents managers. we went through that process, that charter process that i described. four of the agreements will be disclosed today, that's 1414, and