THIS COULD HAPPEN...

Click here and learn how the bus lost its top... maybe during the last strike?

EMAIL FROM DON MELVIN... STRIKE?

Colleagues!
I want to remind everyone if we strike we automatically collect unemployment. I seriously question the unions contention that to strike would be playing into managements hands. A live tour guide option on their buses is a valuable if not vital asset. They are counting on the impotence of our Union to have their cake and eat it too by cutting our salaries and creating other undignified chores so that they will profit in every way. 3 years ago with the threat of impending economic doom striking clearly wasn't an option. Today I believe it's our only option.Not 20 people with signs chanting silly slogans, rather active radical actions like blocking buses from going to work. Manning every ticket outlet harassing sales, And of course forcing the company to pay unemployment benefits indefinitely to some 300 workers. It would be a war and we could lose but the otion is NOT an option. Hit this company where it hurts in their wallet. Make it evening news night after night as we are carted off to jail. That surely would make Scotland think twice about Mark Mermelsteins methods and in the end just might save our jobs. Personally my demands are modest. A live tour guide option on the buses a modest raise and at least 35 hours a week. Have no illusion. The last 3 years broke all records for tourism in NYC. Any company that doesn't wish their employees to share in the good fortune is worthy of only contempt and I for one am anxious to impart that reality to them.

Don

SIGN THE PETITION!

CLICK HERE AND GET WITH IT!

Let's blow up a tour bus!!

If you were on a downtown tour on Sunday last... and had to make a detour around Water Street and Hanover Square... here is the reason. I helped Samuel L. Jackson and The Rock (as "THE OTHER GUYS") save NYC from the bad guys by trashing a double decker (in the photo: Big Decker Tours). All in a day's work....

TERRIFYING HELL UNDER TOUR BUS

I just realized the significance (or non-significance) of the headline (also the headline of this post) on the POST article about the pedestrian rundown over at the UN... This, of course, with the replacing of "under" with "on top of" can apply to a constantly recurring everyday, indeed, every tour situation. But I'm just being cynical. Really????

I WAS GETTING BORED WAITING FOR SOMETHING TO POST... (Did she have a ticket?)

Twin-decker pins woman in Midtown

By TOM LIDDY

Last Updated: 9:42 AM, October 13, 2009

Posted: 2:56 AM, October 13, 2009

A pleasant sightseeing tour around Midtown turned to horror with a simple turn of the wheel yesterday when a double-decker bus plowed into a woman crossing the street.

Lolaa Alrashied, struck just steps from the United Nations, was pinned under the bus and screaming in pain as shocked tourists looked on.

Alrashied had been rushing to cross as the bus, which had a green light, was turning onto 42nd Street.

"I was just on my way to the shower, and I heard cries," said Sean Bloch, 27, who lives nearby.

"I heard, 'Don't touch her! Don't move her!' She was screaming."

SEAN BLOCH

A passerby tries to comfort a woman who was run over and pinned by a double-deck tour bus in Midtown.

Alrashied was wedged face down under the frame of the Gray Line bus -- which had been turning left onto East 42nd Street -- between the front and back wheels. Her sunglasses were thrown a few feet and she was clutching her gold purse as she grimaced in pain just feet from the crosswalk.

Passers-by raced to her aide as the 20 horrified sightseers aboard the bus looked on. One Samaritan offered comfort to Alrashied.

"He was attentive to her," said Bloch, of the man who knelt by the woman's side and placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

Witnesses said the unwitting driver tried to move the bus while Alrashied was still pinned beneath it.

"The bus driver was trying to move the bus," Bloch said. "People were yelling, 'Stop moving the bus!' "

At that point, the driver, identified by sources as Rene Abrego, 61, ran out and tried to help, but was pushed away by a crowd that had formed around her.

"It took the tourists on the second [level] time to figure out what was going on," said Bloch, a filmmaker.

"The tourists were all in shock. They didn't even want to look. There was a mother who was shielding her daughter."

"They got more than they bargained for."

It wasn't clear whether the driver initially knew he had even hit someone.

Firetrucks and ambulances rushed to the scene, and rescuers carefully removed Alrashied from under the bus.

Medics placed her on a backboard and secured her neck with a brace before whisking her to Bellevue Hospital, where she was treated for leg fractures and trauma.

She was listed in serious condition.

No summonses were issued. Records indicate Abrego has a clean driving record.

"Gray Line is fully cooperating with the police and they wish the woman a full recovery," company spokeswoman Cristyne Nicholas said.

Additional reporting by Murray Weiss, Michelle Kaske, Tim Perone, Reuven Fenton and Jessica Simeone

tom.liddy@nypost.com

A WHOLE LOTTA SWEARIN' GOIN' ON!

This is what we actually came for... but where was the champagne?

No, there was NO champagne... not even a sneaky quick scotch behind one of the pillars...

This was a first attempt to get a group shot of the swearinginees...

But Stacy was too excited to enjoy herself...

But dancers are always excited...

Stop! In the name of LOVE! Get a load of Karen emulating Bella Abzug! Okay, some of you are too young to know who Bella Abzug was... let's just say she was in the trenches with Mike Quill...

Every swearing-in needs an agitator...

And Mensan did his part...

And James was on his way up...

Andy and Stuart contemplated something on the other side of the room... probably me as I left early... I came home to post this stuff to the blog...

YOU ARE INVITED

TWU LOCAL 225 swearing in ceremony for union officers

Taking the oath of office

Karen Fleming President

Richard Ventola Vice-President

Anthony Celeste Secretary-Treasurer

Andy Sydor Recording Secretary

Mensan Kinvi Executive Board Branch I

Max Carames Executive Board II

Todd McGue Executive Board III

Thursday October 1, 2009

12PM to 2PM

505 Eighth Avenue

between West 35^th Street

and West 36^th Street

New York, NY

Second Floor

All TWU Local 225 members are welcome to attend!

The building requires ID to enter

CLARIFICATION...

For all you guys who DON'T read between the lines... I didn't mean to insinuate that the concerns of ALL union members are not in many ways similar... of course we all want job security, decent wages, a safe work place and all that. When I stated that the concerns of NYU or NJ Transit or Shortline bus drivers are not the same as Grayline ticket agents and tour guides, I meant that (of course) we all have overlapping concerns as union members (I am in 4 unions). But besides those basic concerns, there seems to be a unique non-relationship between the workers of Grayline and the Grayline bosses. GL brass does not respect their employees or their customers. Shortline and NJ Transit bosses are somewhat (if perhaps not a great deal) more respectful of their workers and their public. I could be wrong, but GL management may be unique in the annals of the business world. Most business people are basically pigs, but most of them including the movie and TV producers (for whom I toil occasionally under the auspices of SAG and AFTRA), Broadway producers (whose workers are variously AEA, AFM and IATSE members), and transit authorities (TWU and Teamsters) have just a little bit of awareness of the needs of their customers and their workers. If TV and movie and theatre producers treated their workers and their public like GL treats their reason for being in business, those TV sets and movie theatres and Broadway playhouses would all go dark in three days.

LEST WE FORGET...

Let the new leadership remember... there are members of Local 225 who are NOT Grayline Tour Guides. The local represents NYU Drivers, employees of Shortline and employees of NJ Transit. Although the majority of non-Grayline workers voted for the status quo (ie: Carlos) let us reach out to them and remember this union represents them also. There are many varied interests at stake. The concerns of a NJ Transit driver are totally different from the concerns of a Grayline ticket agent. There may be a feeling that, under the previous administration, Grayline workers didn't get fair and equal representation, but let's remember NOT to swing the other way and leave the drivers out in the cold... they must believe that the new leadership works for them, also. This is a UNION... and don't forget it.