Rethinking Recruitment: Converting our Challenges to Opportunities
As we all know, transit, along with almost every other industry across the country, is facing significant recruitment challenges. Join leading industry thinkers and practitioners from transit labor and management, education, and the nonprofit sector in a "big picture" examination and interactive discussion about questions we should be asking and how we might change our thinking and approaches to the inter-related issues of recruitment and retention, so we can meet today's workforce needs and build a strong foundation for our future.
Moderator: Karen Philbrick, Executive Director, Mineta Transportation Institute
Panelists
- Paul Skoutelas, President, American Public Transportation Association
- India Birdsong Terry, General Manager & Chief Executive Officer, Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority
- Yvette Trujillo, Executive Vice President, Amalgamated Transit Union
Navigating New Directions: Emerging Technologies and the Future of Transit Workforce
Like every other sector of the US (and world) economy, public transportation continues to face challenges of how to adapt to new and emerging technologies as innovations advance at a rapid pace. This session will focus tightly on the relationship between new technologies and frontline transit work. Carnegie-Mellon researchers will report on a study released in spring 2022 on bus automation, examining issues related to the practical safety and operational limitations of deploying driverless buses in transit systems while citing many technologies that can enhance safety and improve driver performance. Panelists will respond to that report and also discuss the growing role of technology in delivering transit services, implementing microtransit and Mobility as a Service, and labor standards for the frontline workers delivering these mobility services.
Moderator: Gregory Regan, President, Transportation Trades Department (TTD), American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)
Opening Presentation:
- Sarah Fox, Assistant Professor, Carnegie Mellon University
- Nikolas Martelaro, Assistant Professor, Carnegie Mellon University
Panelists:
- Holly Arnold, Administrator, Maryland Transit Administration
- Conan Cheung, Chief Operations Officer, Los Angeles Metro
- John Costa, President, Amalgamated Transit Union
- Madeline Janis, Executive Director, Jobs to Move America
- John Samuelson, International President, Transport Workers Union of America
How Do We Pay for All These Good Workforce Development Programs?
Participants will have spent a day and a half networking and learning from peers and industry leaders about innovative approaches to recruitment, retention, training for the transit operators and technicians, ZEB transition, apprenticeship and more. All these ideas sound great, and some locations seem to have made a lot of them work. When I get home, how does my agency figure out how to pay for all this? Panelists will address what federal and state grants can provide, what current legislation and policy allows, why partnerships with local workforce boards and state apprenticeship agencies can help your training budgets. The discussion will also challenge local decision makers to examine their own priorities on workforce development.
Moderator: Scott Bogren, Executive Director, Community Transportation Association of America (CTAA)
Panelists:
- Molly Bashay, Policy Advisor, Department of Labor
- Jeff Rosenberg, Director of Government Affairs, Amalgamated Transit Union
- Dr. Beverly Scott, Founder and Director, Introducing Youth to American Infrastructure
- Paige Shevlin, Strategic Advisor, Department of Transportation
- Featured Workshop
|
