PUBLIC FINANCING disproportionately hurting essential workers and communities of colour.93 Going forward, unions will need to fight for the right of workers and the groups of users most dependent on public transport to participate in discussions on LPT funding, and in the planning of LPT systems and oversight of their operations. This means calling on PTAs and governments to go beyond symbolic appointments of a few civil society representatives to governance bodies and implement continuous consultative processes that solicit feedback from frontline workers and the people who use public transport every day.94 It also requires the introduction of structures that include unions in economic decision-making at all levels, from the workplace to policymaking. In order for unions to make demands for such procedures and structures, however, we first need to be clear about what we are going to put on the table once we are seated at it. This report is meant to stimulate debate within and among unions that will assist in the development of proposals for sustainable and socially just LPT funding and LPT systems. Its main recommendations are summarised in the final section.
93 https://transitcenter.org/what-transit-agencies-get-wrongabout-equity-and-how-to-get-it-right/
ViI Recommendations for sustainable and socially just LPT funding 1. Timely, fair and sufficient emergency funding for LPT services Emergency funding for LPT is already running out. Governments should commit to continued funding to help LPT systems get through a protracted and uncertain recovery, without requiring extensive cuts to jobs and services. 2. Emergency funding for all PTAs and PTOs Emergency funding should be available to operators in both the public and private sector based on what is needed to maintain appropriate services levels and keep workers, including subcontracted workers, employed. 3. Conditions and oversight to ensure emergency funding is used to protect workers and users PTAs and PTOs receiving support should be required to protect workers’ employment (including through the use of existing employment support, shorttime work and temporary layoff schemes where they are available) and submit to democratic oversight structures with union participation. Private operators should be required to suspend payment of dividends and share buybacks, cap executive salary and submit to closer control by local authorities. Emergency funding should be used to protect workers’ and users’ health and safety as well as keeping workers employed and services running.
94 For examples of such processes see, TransitCenter, What Transit Agencies Get Wrong about Equity, and How to Get it Right, 2020.
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