<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Hi All,<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Just a reminder to fill out <a href="https://doodle.com/poll/cdvi9gp8shz4nprp" target="_blank" class="">this poll</a> when you have a sec— before the end of the day tomorrow— so we can schedule a meeting.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Re Jim’s question, if anyone wants to try this, that’s cool. However, I think cold-calling employers to ask for this information may be a time-consuming and thankless task, possibly with little success. But I think there are other ways. I met with someone from the Downtown Seattle Association earlier this week, and he said they will try to help us get more information about what transit benefits their members (businesses mainly in the downtown area) offer. We’ll see where that goes.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Also, we’ve gotten a couple of form submissions in the past week from people telling us what transit benefits their employers do or do not offer. The most recent one is kind of interesting, so I’m pasting it below.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">- Katie</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><p class=""><b class="">Employer:</b> IBI Group</p><p class=""><b class="">Transportation Benefits:</b> Offers pre-tax option: employees can purchase transit pass products with a payroll deduction</p><p class=""><b class="">Anything else you want to tell us?:</b> Subsidized ORCA cards have been a source of contention in the office and has been discussed as long as I have been at the firm. There has been a variety of excuses for delaying and suboptimal proposals given (for example, giving a stored value credit, but many of us worked out it would still be cheaper to buy out of pocket the monthly pass). It's somewhat ironic that IBI Group was the firm was the one that ST and KCM hired to implement the ORCA card system and yet doesn't offer subsidized passes to their employees.</p><div class="">
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<div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Jan 15, 2020, at 12:49 PM, Jim Walseth <<a href="mailto:jim.walseth@gmail.com" class="">jim.walseth@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="">Katie <i class="">et al</i>,<br class=""></div><div class="">On the topic of "
a survey specifically for businesses
", I think we would have more complete data on existing transit subsidies if we go to the employers directly. Like, just call them and ask. The data would go a long way to answering "
how many employees our legislation would impact
".</div><div class=""> I wonder what it would cost to hire someone to do that. <br class=""></div><div class="">Jim<br class=""></div></div><br class=""><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Jan 14, 2020 at 12:12 PM Katie Wilson <<a href="mailto:katie@transitriders.org" class="">katie@transitriders.org</a>> wrote:<br class=""></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div style="overflow-wrap: break-word;" class="">Hey folks,<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Happy new year! 2020 is the year we extend employer-subsidized transit passes to thousands more Seattle workers. Our goal is to pass legislation in the first half of the year.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">TRU’s organizing team will be meeting later this month to develop our organizing plan. But we also need a research & data plan. I’m wondering if we can schedule a meeting soon to discuss what role this group might be play in the campaign. <a href="https://doodle.com/poll/cdvi9gp8shz4nprp" target="_blank" class="">Here’s a doodle poll</a> for evenings the week starting Jan. 27. If you’re interested in this discussion, please fill out the poll by the end of this week. (I chose 5:30-7pm as the meeting time, but we could shift this earlier or later depending on people’s schedules— if you prefer a different start time, maybe make a note of that in the poll.)</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">My main idea so far is that we could design an online survey to collect input on the details of the legislation. Something like:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 40px;border:medium none;padding:0px" class=""><div class="">Here’s our basic proposal: employers with over 500 employees worldwide have to offer a 50% transit subsidy. What do you think of it? (Hate it to love it, scale 1-10 or whatever)</div><div class="">Here’s ten ways the proposal could get more complicated, what do you think of each one?</div><div class="">- include an upper tier for employers with 1000+ or 5000+ employees in Seattle, require 75% or 90% or 100% transit subsidy</div><div class="">- exempt non-profits</div><div class="">- include v. exclude part-time, temporary/seasonal, and contract employees</div><div class="">- etc.</div><div class="">Any other thoughts or ideas? (open-ended)</div></blockquote><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">And maybe we also do a survey specifically for businesses… not sure if that’s a good idea, but worth considering.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Maybe there are other projects we could work on too that would be helpful to the campaign at this point. For example, it would be great to get a better sense of how many employees our legislation would impact. It’s possible we could do some back-of-the-napkin calculations and be able to say “this would result in at least X workers being offered better transit benefits” or something like that.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Katie</div><div class=""><br class=""><div class="">
<div style="overflow-wrap: break-word;" class=""><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" class=""><span style="color:rgb(102,102,102);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px" class="">Katie Wilson</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" class=""><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px" class=""><font color="#666666" class="">General Secretary</font></div><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px" class=""><font color="#666666" class="">Transit Riders Union</font></div><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px" class=""><font color="#666666" class=""><a href="https://transitriders.org/" target="_blank" class="">https://transitriders.org</a></font></div><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px" class=""><span class=""><font color="#666666" class="">206-781-7204</font></span></div><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px" class=""><font color="#999999" class=""><br class=""></font></div><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px" class=""><i class=""><font color="#999999" class="">The Transit Riders Union is a democratic organization of working and poor </font></i><i class=""><font color="#999999" class="">people, including students, seniors, and people with disabilities, taking control over our own lives, and building up the power we </font></i><i class=""><font color="#999999" class="">need to change society for the good of humanity and of the planet. We will </font></i><i class=""><font color="#999999" class="">fight to preserve, expand, and improve the public transportation system in </font></i><i class=""><font color="#999999" class="">Seattle and beyond, so that every human being has access to safe, </font></i><i class=""><font color="#999999" class="">affordable, and reliable public transit.</font></i></div></div></div>
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