KING COUNTY, Wash. — Soon hundreds of King County Metro drivers will be out of work. The transit agency announced it will lay off 200 part-time bus drivers in early August. It points to "unprecedented losses" because of COVID-19.
Drivers say it’s precisely because of the pandemic that losing their jobs now will especially hurt because they are losing their health benefits, too.
Metro, they say, is turning its back on them when they need their jobs most.
“It just seems to me to be kind of a despicable thing to do especially in a county that’s named after Martin Luther King,” said Doug Faber.
Faber, 65, has driven part-time for King County Metro since last November, working out of the Eastgate Park and Ride.
Now 200 part-time drivers are set to be laid off early next month.
“I’m in that group,” he said. “Last in, first out.”
Metro confirms it is laying off the drivers based on seniority, a decision driven largely by a stunning drop in revenue because of the pandemic. King County predicts Metro faces $2.2 billion in losses through 2028.
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And there’s the human toll. Two Metro drivers have succumbed to COVID-19.
“It’s not a very nice way to thank people for risking their lives on a day-to-day basis,” said Faber, “and say ‘hey, we appreciate it. We’re going to take away your income and your health benefits’ right in the middle of a pandemic.‘”
For its part, Metro says it is providing career support, helping drivers get on with other King County departments and that they will be hired back first.
But Faber says many of the newer drivers are immigrants and people of color, being thrown into unemployment when hardly anyone is hiring.
“There’s money somewhere,” he insists. “Rainy-day funds. They could even do a temporary tax on the wealthy, a big business, a COVID tax, to keep the buses running. People don’t always get through this. Municipalities get through it. People don’t.”
Faber says this is just the first of Metro’s layoffs.
They have been told another 250 part-time drivers will be getting the ax, too.
Cox Media Group
