Metro Transit's Bad Boy List

When told this statement was in the grievance document, Kiefner claims that Metro Transit improperly released the information.

"You are handling an illegal document," Kiefner says. "Metro Transit is using whatever they can, whenever they can, even though it's illegal, to make this driver and other drivers look bad. I'm going to end this conversation and call my lawyer."

Mike Sgier

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• Poole
• Amalgamated Transit Union
• Christy Bailly
• Transportation
• Public Transportation

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Kiefner was discharged for "using a deadly weapon in the attempted assault of a customer." He claims that his criminal charge for disorderly conduct was instigated by Metro Transit.

"Metro Transit pushed to have that disorderly conduct [charge]," Kiefner says. "It was done just before my grievance, and it was even brought up in my arbitration."

In that hearing, Kiefner argued that although he wielded the ice scraper in his hand, he never intended to use it aggressively, only for self-defense.

The arbitrator ruled in Kiefner's favor, as the angle of the camera did not definitively establish that he made an aggressive swinging motion with the scraper.

Kiefner was reinstated October 7 and issued his third Last Chance Agreement. Part of the deal stipulated that Kiefner had to attend three different training programs. However, because of confidentiality rules, Metro Transit cannot check in on whether their drivers actually attend the counseling programs or not.

In Kiefner's case, he decided to leave Metro Transit voluntarily to work as a driver for a logging company.

"I did win the arbitration, and I just couldn't go back," Kiefner says. "After 15 years it was enough dealing with the general public—everyone looks down their nose at the bus driver."

Metro Transit's Fred T. Heywood Office Building sits three blocks from Target Field in downtown Minneapolis. Inside, an automated control center tracks the movements of every bus in the system.

From that building, Director of Bus Operations Christy Bailly oversees driver punishment, among other responsibilities. Bailly took over her post in January after serving six months as acting director.

Bailly and Metro Transit spokesman Bob Gibbons say the disciplinary system holds drivers accountable, and that employees like Poole and Burks showed improvement after management tightened the screws and assigned more oversight.

"When [drivers] don't live up to expectations, our mindset is not to immediately fire them," Gibbons says. "It's to get them the training, the information, and the techniques that they need to improve their performance."

But many complaints and violations never make their way to an operator's record in the first place. When faced with a complaint, garage managers weigh the testimony of drivers against the word of complaining passengers.

"Sometimes you can tell," Bailly says. "You can kind of get a sense sometimes from a customer if they're being truthful or not, just by the conversation."

Even after multiple complaints have been verified and a driver has performed poorly, contractual provisions give drivers a clean slate after three years.

"That 36-month window is part of the operating policy and was negotiated with the ATU," Bailly explains.

So the Bad Boys drive on.

"We have a contract with our customers to be at a particular point at a particular time, and we want to live up to that contract," Gibbons says. "And the main player in living up to that contract is the operator."