Florida Restructuring

[Anderson]

That's what I was initially thinking: There was a lot of investment in Tri-Rail, and they didn't want competition. I just can't see Amtrak not taking passengers on the back end of a segment when there's room like you've got on those trains when they have to haul the passengers and pay the crew anyway, especially since it's not like the NEC (in that on the NEC, you could swamp every LD train some days with short-haul passengers going NYP-WAS).

The main thing is that, with "Orlampa" being the biggest travel market in Florida, I can't see them not serving it with one of their trains. Right now, those two stations account for somewhere around 35% of the non-Auto Train business in Florida. Put another way, the lower end of the East Coast does barely as much business as Orlampa, and that's with one daily train to Tampa.

 

[nferr]

I agree that instead of the HSR, Florida should push for funding to get the current lines upgraded for faster speeds and more frequent service. I think they would do well if they got dedicated trains running between Miami-Tampa-Orlando-Jacksonville on more frequent service.

As far as somebody posted about cleaning an airliner, think about it please. There's one plane versus a long distance train with maybe ten cars and numerous bathrooms, a lounge car, sleepers, etc. Totally different situation. And on a plane it's maybe a few hour flight to get dirty versus at least one overnight journey on a long distance train.

Not if we are talking of an 15 hour 777 full service international flights. And those are regularly turned in 2 hours. Really Amtrak has zero excuse for their 8 revenue car trains to take more that 3 hours or so.

Three hours to stock, clean, fuel etc. a long distance train? I don't know.

 

[Tracktwentynine]

Right now, if any splitting is going to happen, it's going to result in service on the Florida East Coast, not Miami to Tampa.

Back in August, Florida and Amtrak released a plan for restoring service on the FEC. You can view the report here. It's a PDF. "Attachment C" has conceptual schedules.

Essentially, in the long term, the plan would result in:

Phase I

• Split the Silver Star at Jacksonville. Half the train runs down the FEC. It would get into Miami almost 4 hours before the Star via Tampa does.
• The other half of the Silver Star runs on its current schedule via Tampa.
• The Silver Meteor continues to run as a whole train between Jacksonville and Miami via Orlando.
• A new afternoon departure from Jacksonville to Miami via Cocoa.
• A new morning departure from Miami to Jacksonville via Cocoa.
• The Silver Meteor continues to run as a whole train between Miami and Jacksonville via Orlando.
• Half of the Silver Star runs from Miami to Jacksonville via Tampa.
• The other half leaves in the afternoon and is joined with the rest of the Star at Jacksonville.

Phase II

• Adds 3 southbound departures from Jacksonville to Miami via Cocoa.
• Phase III adds an evening departure from Jacksonville to Cocoa.
• Adds 3 northbound departures from Miami to Jacksonville via Cocoa.
• Phase III adds a morning departure from Cocoa to Jacksonville.

 

[AlanB]

That's what I was initially thinking: There was a lot of investment in Tri-Rail, and they didn't want competition. I just can't see Amtrak not taking passengers on the back end of a segment when there's room like you've got on those trains when they have to haul the passengers and pay the crew anyway, especially since it's not like the NEC (in that on the NEC, you could swamp every LD train some days with short-haul passengers going NYP-WAS).

Amtrak doesn't want those passengers. They can't provide reliable southbound service, since the trains can be hours late. And northbound extra passengers at that point only mean longer loading times at stations on the northern end of the line, as they'll first have to unload people before those boarding can load. Finally of course, most people are commuting in the opposite direction in the morning. They're going south, while Amtrak is going north.

Now perhaps if Florida & Amtrak institute a NC like train that plies the rails from Miami to Jacksonville, thing could and should change. But we don't have that right now.

 

[Anderson]

Ok, reading through the report. First of all, this is the sort of data I've wanted to see on projects for a long time but that is hard to come by. It's nice, it's detailed, it discusses the options and the models and gives reasons for the estimates...in short, everything that the usual PR documents don't do very well. While I think that they may be undershooting on demand slightly (and of course, they're getting murdered by the host railway fees), I "get" this project summary a lot more than I did the HSR projections that were being bandied about.

 

[jis]

I agree that instead of the HSR, Florida should push for funding to get the current lines upgraded for faster speeds and more frequent service. I think they would do well if they got dedicated trains running between Miami-Tampa-Orlando-Jacksonville on more frequent service.

As far as somebody posted about cleaning an airliner, think about it please. There's one plane versus a long distance train with maybe ten cars and numerous bathrooms, a lounge car, sleepers, etc. Totally different situation. And on a plane it's maybe a few hour flight to get dirty versus at least one overnight journey on a long distance train.

Not if we are talking of an 15 hour 777 full service international flights. And those are regularly turned in 2 hours. Really Amtrak has zero excuse for their 8 revenue car trains to take more that 3 hours or so.

Three hours to stock, clean, fuel etc. a long distance train? I don't know.

I am sure Amtrak is incapable of achieving such with its current practices. Jokingly it is said that Sunnyside practices the roll-in-roll-out method of servicing, the key idea being the train rolls in and as long as it is able to roll out on its own servicing is considered done and trains leave filthy as ever. So of the 20 or so hours that the train sits there, perhaps no more than two or three are actually used for doing any work on it if that anyway, and even that is done poorly. So why do they need it to sit around for those 20 hours?

BTW, the 777 flights I mentioned are also ETOPS flights, which means they have to undergo an ETOPS technical check and fixing. If Amtrak went through such checks, they'd hardly ever have a road failure of a P42. And all of that is also completed in the two hour turn.

 

[ACVitale]

BTW, the 777 flights I mentioned are also ETOPS flights, which means they have to undergo an ETOPS technical check and fixing. If Amtrak went through such checks, they'd hardly ever have a road failure of a P42. And all of that is also completed in the two hour turn.

Having spent most of my life working in Int'l. aviation....

The ETOPS flight checks require a turn of around 3 hours. The aircraft have a couple of strategic advantages on quick turns. The aircraft areas are generally more accessible so cleaning carpets etc. is easier. The seatbacks and other areas are generally hit by a team of 4-8 cleaners whom are part of a larger team that is also vacuuming and cleaning and dumping lavs etc. (depending on airport, airline, and time to turn) where the trains are generally cleaned by smaller teams. The airlines can spread the cost of the cleaners payroll across multiple flights and aircraft so they can justify the cost of the additional head count. Amtrak with the exception of Washington, Seattle, New York, Chicago and a few other key stations is looking at 1 or 2 overnight turn trains per day.

All this notwithstanding.... I have noticed on every train to date areas of seriously inadequate cleaning and maintenance in both the sleepers and coaches. A heavy cleaning should be taking place on these long overnights. If you have 8 coaches and 3-4 people to clean then over an 8 hr shift they should be immaculate. I suspect some of the cleaning may be contract work to the lowest bidder or in the alternative they need to find someone else to do the job who takes some pride in doing the job right.

Again my $.02

 

[had8ley]

Any managers from Amtrak care to comment about the coach cleaners AND supervisor caught sleeping in the Chicago coach yards? Seems someone took the time to make a midnight run through a train set and found the (some ???) culprits for inadequate sanitation. VIA would run everyone off, including the local Superintendent, if this ever happened on their RR. George Mortimer would probably hire a firing squad :help:

 

[jis]

BTW, the 777 flights I mentioned are also ETOPS flights, which means they have to undergo an ETOPS technical check and fixing. If Amtrak went through such checks, they'd hardly ever have a road failure of a P42. And all of that is also completed in the two hour turn.

Having spent most of my life working in Int'l. aviation....

The ETOPS flight checks require a turn of around 3 hours.

Just for my education, is it the case that they have to do the ETOPS check after a certain number of hours?

The reason I ask is that CO 82 EWR - DEL gets into Delhi at 8:15pm and CO 83 using the same equipment (777-200ER) is scheduled to depart at 10:50pm. That is less than a 3 hour turn and both CO 82 and CO 83 are ETOPS flights (around 15 hours each crossing parts of the Arctic Ocean, Baltic Sea and parts of North Atlantic depending on routing).

So is it possible that the ETOPS checks happen only at the EWR end? The aircraft usually has some 4 or 5 hours in EWR before it hoofs off to the far east in the late morning, after an early morning arrival from Delhi into Newark.

The aircraft have a couple of strategic advantages on quick turns. The aircraft areas are generally more accessible so cleaning carpets etc. is easier. The seatbacks and other areas are generally hit by a team of 4-8 cleaners whom are part of a larger team that is also vacuuming and cleaning and dumping lavs etc. (depending on airport, airline, and time to turn) where the trains are generally cleaned by smaller teams. The airlines can spread the cost of the cleaners payroll across multiple flights and aircraft so they can justify the cost of the additional head count. Amtrak with the exception of Washington, Seattle, New York, Chicago and a few other key stations is looking at 1 or 2 overnight turn trains per day.

And yet it is New York and Chicago which seem to be the worst culprits.

All this notwithstanding.... I have noticed on every train to date areas of seriously inadequate cleaning and maintenance in both the sleepers and coaches. A heavy cleaning should be taking place on these long overnights. If you have 8 coaches and 3-4 people to clean then over an 8 hr shift they should be immaculate. I suspect some of the cleaning may be contract work to the lowest bidder or in the alternative they need to find someone else to do the job who takes some pride in doing the job right.

Amtrak has consistently failed to gain full managerial control of both Chicago and Sunnyside operations. I have no clue what the difficulty is.

 

[had8ley]

And yet it is New York and Chicago which seem to be the worst culprits.

All this notwithstanding.... I have noticed on every train to date areas of seriously inadequate cleaning and maintenance in both the sleepers and coaches. A heavy cleaning should be taking place on these long overnights. If you have 8 coaches and 3-4 people to clean then over an 8 hr shift they should be immaculate. I suspect some of the cleaning may be contract work to the lowest bidder or in the alternative they need to find someone else to do the job who takes some pride in doing the job right.

Amtrak has consistently failed to gain full managerial control of both Chicago and Sunnyside operations. I have no clue what the difficulty is.

If we went to Sunnyside or Chicago I'm sure the unions would blast management and vice versa. I have been a union member since the early '60's but with increased ridership, shortage of equipment and a general gloomy economic atmosphere it would behove those doing the work to do it properly; that's what they're paid for! What I have seen, personally, is a manager take a cleaning crew off of an assignment and start them on another car. The first job never gets completed. The last time I checked both Sunnyside and Chicago were union coach cleaners. One red flag is that Chicago coach yards, at one time, had the highest incidents of drug failures on all Class 1's for an entire year. Not much to brag about but could be a possible explanation for shoddy, overlooked (got a light, man?) or just skipped cleanings. Sunnyside is dubbed the "Hell Hole" by many RR'ers I know who have worked there. Just one suggestion if it would work~ contract out the sleepers and let the unions figure out it won't be long that the coaches will go also if they don't buckle up and perform.

 

[haolerider]

Any managers from Amtrak care to comment about the coach cleaners AND supervisor caught sleeping in the Chicago coach yards? Seems someone took the time to make a midnight run through a train set and found the (some ???) culprits for inadequate sanitation. VIA would run everyone off, including the local Superintendent, if this ever happened on their RR. George Mortimer would probably hire a firing squad :help:

Seems to me I recall David Gunn making several unannounced trips to both the Chicago yards and Sunnyside and finding much the same kind of situation. People were fired on the spot; however I don't know if the firing stuck - after union intervention. These two locations have been notorious for years, but there doesn't ever seem to be anyone that will crack the whip and get the locations shaped up. There could not be too more critical locations for service/cleaning/etc. More sleeping may occur on the third shift, but I am not sure!!

 

[GG-1]

Any managers from Amtrak care to comment about the coach cleaners AND supervisor caught sleeping in the Chicago coach yards? Seems someone took the time to make a midnight run through a train set and found the (some ???) culprits for inadequate sanitation. VIA would run everyone off, including the local Superintendent, if this ever happened on their RR. George Mortimer would probably hire a firing squad :help:

People were fired on the spot; however I don't know if the firing stuck - after union intervention. These two locations have been notorious for years, but there doesn't ever seem to be anyone that will crack the whip and get the locations shaped up.

Aloha

I support unions. With out them we would still be in the sweat shop age. But unions are not always right.. Unfortunately bad unions = bad management. When the process works the Labor is given an equal part of a successful business and are considered and treated as assets. Good Management knows this, and treating the labor properly improves business success.

Just as strong as I feel in support of unions, there are some members whose ethical attitudes are lower than whale S***, but for these shirkers there are management people that allow and encourage this conduct by not doing there jobs correctly.

Please don't see my rant from the soapbox give the impression that I don't support Managers, They are as important as Labor, and I respect the good ones. I also loth the Labor cheats.

 

[Pastor Dave]

Any managers from Amtrak care to comment about the coach cleaners AND supervisor caught sleeping in the Chicago coach yards? Seems someone took the time to make a midnight run through a train set and found the (some ???) culprits for inadequate sanitation. VIA would run everyone off, including the local Superintendent, if this ever happened on their RR. George Mortimer would probably hire a firing squad :help:

People were fired on the spot; however I don't know if the firing stuck - after union intervention. These two locations have been notorious for years, but there doesn't ever seem to be anyone that will crack the whip and get the locations shaped up.

Aloha

I support unions. With out them we would still be in the sweat shop age. But unions are not always right.. Unfortunately bad unions = bad management. When the process works the Labor is given an equal part of a successful business and are considered and treated as assets. Good Management knows this, and treating the labor properly improves business success.

Just as strong as I feel in support of unions, there are some members whose ethical attitudes are lower than whale S***, but for these shirkers there are management people that allow and encourage this conduct by not doing there jobs correctly.

Please don't see my rant from the soapbox give the impression that I don't support Managers, They are as important as Labor, and I respect the good ones. I also loth the Labor cheats.

It is a tough call GG-1. There was a time when management held the upper hand and unions were necessary to swing the pendulum back towards the middle. Do unions push for too much these days? I guess that is in the eye of the beholder. Maybe unions have gone to far - maybe not. I guess my concern is for those who hide under the banner of the union and would rather be slackers than diligent employees.

 

[Anderson]

And yet it is New York and Chicago which seem to be the worst culprits.

All this notwithstanding.... I have noticed on every train to date areas of seriously inadequate cleaning and maintenance in both the sleepers and coaches. A heavy cleaning should be taking place on these long overnights. If you have 8 coaches and 3-4 people to clean then over an 8 hr shift they should be immaculate. I suspect some of the cleaning may be contract work to the lowest bidder or in the alternative they need to find someone else to do the job who takes some pride in doing the job right.

Amtrak has consistently failed to gain full managerial control of both Chicago and Sunnyside operations. I have no clue what the difficulty is.

If we went to Sunnyside or Chicago I'm sure the unions would blast management and vice versa. I have been a union member since the early '60's but with increased ridership, shortage of equipment and a general gloomy economic atmosphere it would behove those doing the work to do it properly; that's what they're paid for! What I have seen, personally, is a manager take a cleaning crew off of an assignment and start them on another car. The first job never gets completed. The last time I checked both Sunnyside and Chicago were union coach cleaners. One red flag is that Chicago coach yards, at one time, had the highest incidents of drug failures on all Class 1's for an entire year. Not much to brag about but could be a possible explanation for shoddy, overlooked (got a light, man?) or just skipped cleanings. Sunnyside is dubbed the "Hell Hole" by many RR'ers I know who have worked there. Just one suggestion if it would work~ contract out the sleepers and let the unions figure out it won't be long that the coaches will go also if they don't buckle up and perform.

You know, now that you mention it, I'm left wondering if some form of return to the Pullman structure (what you are describing is basically what was done up until the 60s on a lot of lines) wouldn't be preferable from a QA standpoint...particularly if you got a contractor who could operate out of some right-to-work state like Florida. Of course, the problem is that on most lines, the sleepers lose money (though not nearly as badly as the coaches, and I'm pretty sure that gap has been closing over the last few years as crowding has increased, and with it the use of the higher bucket fares...that sold-out train means someone dropped $1200 for a round-trip roomette somewhere), but if you take trains like the Silver Service, I think you could work a contract operation into the mix as long as you were willing to make sure there was a diner onboard that could be accessed (with coach access to the diner, as now, being dependent on capacity and so forth). Let's not forget (again) that the Silvers are pulling the same wright on Viewliners that most other trains are with Superliners.

Of course, this (again) raises the thought of doing a Superliner section on the various southbound trains out of WAS...I'm brought back to the passing thought I had of running two of the southbound trains (possibly the Cardinal, possibly the Crescent, and the Star) joined to WAS and then splitting them onto a set of mixed-level trains at WAS. The only thing forcing a lot of these trains to be single-level is the NEC segments, and knowing that the trains pick up a lot of folks (I'm not familiar with the proportions, since the report hasn't come out on the Silvers yet) in and below WAS (look at RVR's transit data, for example), this would seem to be doable.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Disclaimer: Im a Life Member of two Unions, IAFF and CWA! Like Eric I agree that there are good Unions and Good Management, but too much Greed going on now in both private and Public Sectors! Bust the Unions is a Race to the bottom, check out Wisconson, Ohio etc. :help:

That being said: Weve all been on absolutely filthy trains, both Regional and LD, since the Eagles are my "Home" trains, Im especially concerned with the shoddy consists that roll out of Chicago on them as well as the CONO when they run through! Jay and I have PMd about this, he does know his stuff for sure! With the High/Highest Bucket fares being encountered on all LD trains due to the ever increasing passenger loads, it's past time for the Amtrak suits to get out of their offices, ride the trains, inspect their areas on a unannounced basis (Management by walking around is still a Great concept!) so as to weed out the Slackers, Dopers and Drunks that are the reason this situation is what it is! :angry2:

 

[jb64]

Disclaimer: Im a Life Member of two Unions, IAFF and CWA! Like Eric I agree that there are good Unions and Good Management, but too much Greed going on now in both private and Public Sectors! Bust the Unions is a Race to the bottom, check out Wisconson, Ohio etc. :help:

That being said: Weve all been on absolutely filthy trains, both Regional and LD, since the Eagles are my "Home" trains, Im especially concerned with the shoddy consists that roll out of Chicago on them as well as the CONO when they run through! Jay and I have PMd about this, he does know his stuff for sure! With the High/Highest Bucket fares being encountered on all LD trains due to the ever increasing passenger loads, it's past time for the Amtrak suits to get out of their offices, ride the trains, inspect their areas on a unannounced basis (Management by walking around is still a Great concept!) so as to weed out the Slackers, Dopers and Drunks that are the reason this situation is what it is! :angry2:

I agree, they should get out and inspect them on a regular basis. However, the question remains, what good would it do if there could be no real consequences for the slackers, dopers, and drunks due to union protection and rules? I think we are seeing the results.

 

[TVRM610]

Disclaimer: Im a Life Member of two Unions, IAFF and CWA! Like Eric I agree that there are good Unions and Good Management, but too much Greed going on now in both private and Public Sectors! Bust the Unions is a Race to the bottom, check out Wisconson, Ohio etc. :help:

That being said: Weve all been on absolutely filthy trains, both Regional and LD, since the Eagles are my "Home" trains, Im especially concerned with the shoddy consists that roll out of Chicago on them as well as the CONO when they run through! Jay and I have PMd about this, he does know his stuff for sure! With the High/Highest Bucket fares being encountered on all LD trains due to the ever increasing passenger loads, it's past time for the Amtrak suits to get out of their offices, ride the trains, inspect their areas on a unannounced basis (Management by walking around is still a Great concept!) so as to weed out the Slackers, Dopers and Drunks that are the reason this situation is what it is! :angry2:

I agree, they should get out and inspect them on a regular basis. However, the question remains, what good would it do if there could be no real consequences for the slackers, dopers, and drunks due to union protection and rules? I think we are seeing the results.

The union does not protect dopers and drunks. If you show up for work drugged up or drunk you can be fired and the Union will not be able to help you.

Slacking, on the other hand is different, since the Union can find a way to say that THIS particular employee's craft is only responsible for THIS set of duties.

I personally think that the Unions themselves are not to blame. It's management not willing to take the time to work properly WITH the unions and employees to make sure everything is being done properly. If management sits in cozy offices and doesn't get out and actually MANAGE the employees, it's hardly fair to point at the unions directly with blame.

 

[AlanB]

The union does not protect dopers and drunks. If you show up for work drugged up or drunk you can be fired and the Union will not be able to help you.

I've got to disagree with you here, at least to a shade of grey.

There was an incident here in NY several years ago where I teacher was fired. He was fired because after a new accusation, it was discovered that he'd already been convicted of sexual abuse of a minor. The union came to his defense and actually won, forcing the board to rehire him.

Now in defense of the union, I will say that my good friend Eric (GG-1) enlightened me to the fact that even if union leadership wanted him gone (and I suspect that they did), under US law they still have to fight for him. If they don't, he can turn around and come after the union for failure to do what they're supposed to do, perhaps even leading to the disbanding of the union.

So they had no choice but to file an appeal on behalf of this teacher. And they won because some manager didn't dot his I's and cross his T's properly. I don't recall just what the paper snafu was that allowed him to win the case and be reinstated, but whatever it was it was enough to get his job back for a while.

The Board of Ed didn't actually put him back in a classroom, they couldn't even if for some god forsaken reason they wanted to, they gave him some back room duties. And eventually they redid the paperwork and did get him fired. But he collected a pay check for probably a year before they could get rid of him.

My point in all this is that the union has a duty to fight for the member, even if they think he/she is the worst human being on the planet. So an employee caught doing drugs can still expect their union rep to defend them as best as possible. Yes, if management has all their ducks in a row, then they're going to be history. But management best have those ducks in a row or that worker will be back on the job.

 

[ACVitale]

Just for my education, is it the case that they have to do the ETOPS check after a certain number of hours?

The reason I ask is that CO 82 EWR - DEL gets into Delhi at 8:15pm and CO 83 using the same equipment (777-200ER) is scheduled to depart at 10:50pm. That is less than a 3 hour turn and both CO 82 and CO 83 are ETOPS flights (around 15 hours each crossing parts of the Arctic Ocean, Baltic Sea and parts of North Atlantic depending on routing).

So is it possible that the ETOPS checks happen only at the EWR end? The aircraft usually has some 4 or 5 hours in EWR before it hoofs off to the far east in the late morning, after an early morning arrival from Delhi into Newark.

ETOPS inspections are required prior to ALL flights that will operate over 1 hr from a suitable landing airport on the route of flight that are operated with twin engine aircraft.

The terms ETOPS is basically Extended Twin Operating Performance Specifications or we like to refer to it as "Engines Turn Or People Swim" I am going to assume that CO has some special arrangements in DEL that allow inspections to begin and take place during activities and periods that are not normally allowed in other airports (Deplaning, Enplaning, Fueling, etc.) But, A good rule of thumb is they need around 3 Hrs, Your example is 2hr 35min which seems a little thin.

One thing you do not want is a problem when you are three hours away from a landing airport...

As for the cleaning and maintenance issues I have had a few issues with trains out of NYP where we had a business class amfleet on the Carolinian that was over 90 degrees inside and they could not shut off the heat. Truly was miserable and actually felt ill by the time I got off. Had three coffee makers on the Silver Star that were bad in the sleepers out of three trips. And had a bad grill in the diner that eliminated most of the diner choices on the last trip. That coupled with dirty cars made me a little less then pleased with the quality control out of NYP.

 

[George Harris]

Now in defense of the union, I will say that my good friend Eric (GG-1) enlightened me to the fact that even if union leadership wanted him gone (and I suspect that they did), under US law they still have to fight for him.

There are numerous other insanities in US law that are if anything, worse. I ran into one of these about 30 years ago when doing some property title research: Briefly: A woman who, based on the trail of events, was significantly retarded, was the heir of a fractional interest in a fairly large piece of property and the last person living in her generation. One of her brothers who had been her legal guardian had died intestate, so she came to be under guardianship of the state, who had designated a guardian, who regularly charged a fee to the estate. Her interest had been zeroed out, so the cost was now draining her nieces and nephews. Here is the worst part: Every year there had to be a hearing on her condition, as to whether she was still non-compos mentis could be declared legally competent. The kicker was in the last line on the record of each of these hearings: "The costs of the hearing are charged to the estate."

First lesson: Be sure you have a will.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

We as a nation have decided to use a confrontational type of justice. A lawyer is just as forced to defend a guilty client. No reason unions should be held to different standards of diligence for incompetent employees than a public defender for a mass murderer.

 

[AlanB]

We as a nation have decided to use a confrontational type of justice. A lawyer is just as forced to defend a guilty client. No reason unions should be held to different standards of diligence for incompetent employees than a public defender for a mass murderer.

In general I'd probably agree, however in the case that I cited, I have to disagree. The employee had already been convicted in a court of law, prior to being hired by the NYC school system. It's illegal to work in the school system with that conviction on his record. Therefore the idea of inocent until proven guilty does not apply here; he's already been proven guilty.

If the incident had occured in the NYC system, I could understand making the union stand behind him. But the incident had occured before NYC, he was found guilty, and therefore had he not lied on his application he never would have gotten the job in first place. No need to force the union to stand behind him, even if someone screwed up the paperwork when terminating him; under the law he cannot work in the schools period.

So it should really be written that they must defend him when the issue of guilt is still up in the air.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Contrariwise, if the NYC achhools had used an appropriate amount of due diligence...

 

[jis]

Contrariwise, if the NYC achhools had used an appropriate amount of due diligence...

Then they maybe would have found a way to send the school administrator to jail?