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ShopRite signs on to CDTA initiative
Program allows store workers to ride free
BY BETHANY BUMP Gazette Reporter

Now that Beth Gohra’s son is in college, she and her husband are left with one vehicle to get around.
It would have been a hassle, but on Friday her employer announced she and her fellow ShopRite colleagues could now ride CDTA buses anywhere, anytime, for free.
    “It will be a lot easier now to say to my husband, ‘You take the car, I can take the bus,’ ” said Gohra, who works five days a week and now looks forward to saving on gas.
    The Capital District Transportation Authority and ShopRite Supermarkets announced the fi rst-of-itskind initiative Friday morning at the new ShopRite store in Albany.
    Standing in front of a CDTA bus bearing a giant ShopRite advertisement, the public transportation company’s CEO, Carm Basile, announced that the fi rst corporate partner to join its universal access program would be a company that only returned to the Capital Region last year.
    A handful of local colleges and universities offer the program to their students, but ShopRite is the first employer to join.
    “We knew that we had something that could help the corporate community,” said Basile. “It could help major employers, so we shopped it. We talked, we worked with elected officials to try to fi nd the right business, but you need someone who’s progressive, someone who says this is not a benefi t, it’s a necessity.”
    Basile applauded ShopRite for being the company willing to “step outside the box.”
    About two-thirds of the store’s part-time employees are expected to use the program, said Tom Urtz, ShopRite’s vice president of human resources and community affairs.
    ShopRite has about 1,000 associates between its Niskayuna and Albany stores. It expects that number to increase to nearly 1,500 when a new store opens in Slingerlands this fall.
    About 15 percent of CDTA’s total ridership is composed of local colleges in the program, including Schenectady County Community College, Skidmore College, the University at Albany, Russell Sage College, the College of Saint Rose and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Students and faculty simply swipe their college ID cards when boarding a CDTA bus, and the colleges pay a flat fee based on student ridership.
    Urtz declined to divulge how much ShopRite is paying to provide the program. CDTA’s base fare is $1.50, with packages available based on usage. Unlimited rides for one month can be purchased for $65 with a Swiper card.
    “It’s a lot cheaper to have people riding buses than to build parking spaces,” noted Basile.
    City and county offi cials were on hand at the news conference to point out the local benefits of the new partnership. Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings said the Albany store would need a couple hundred more parking spots than it has now if every employee drove to work.
    “This lot is maxed out,” he said. “It’s very, very busy. So this really will help ease the burden of transportation that many commuters face, especially as gas prices continue to rise.”
    The program also improves the overall quality of life in the Capital Region, said Jennings. It not only alleviates parking congestion but enhances the city’s sustainability by making environmentally friendly transportation easier to come by.
    As part of the agreement, unlimited rides means pretty much what it sounds like. ShopRite employees can take the bus to and from work, to medical appointments, lunch dates, errands, anywhere.
    There are more than 60 CDTA routes and connections throughout the Capital Region, including the STAR paratransit service and the NX Northway Express service. ........................>>>>...................>>>>....................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r01504&AppName=1

Nice program.

See, a company that moved (back) here WITHOUT ANY TAXPAYER money, of course the dems and the savage girl tried to take credit for it. and now this PRIVATE company is using IT'S OWN PRIVATE MONEY for this program.

As a company that will pay taxes and NOT be a burden to the taxpayers, they will do well.


Now, can some DEM person explain WHY, with the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars given to the wealthy downtown businesses and political cronies, and with the downtown businesses totally and completely exempt from paying property & school taxes, why doesn't downtown businesses provide such a perk for their employees?

Hell, look at Philip Morris, tens of millions of taxpayer dollars he takes, does NOT pay property and school taxes, takes in millions from the shows, and he is so full of greed he forces the volunteers to pay to volunteer!!!!!!!!   For shame!

Great employer....now let's see Price Chopper or Walmart match it......notta

the folks I work with get a 'discount'....NOT FREE.....

why? union?

public transportation = yolk the oxen with an as$

people together in small spaces requires multiple laws....with behavior modification....civilization

Quoted from senders

the folks I work with get a 'discount'....NOT FREE.....

why? union?

Possible, but whether it's union (United Food Commercial Workers, if it is) or not, they obviously have someone better doing the negotiations than the people you're working with.  Better negotiators, better deal.

Quoted from rampage

Possible, but whether it's union (United Food Commercial Workers, if it is) or not, they obviously have someone better doing the negotiations than the people you're working with.  Better negotiators, better deal.

so companies should pay for workers to get to work????
does this become one of the 'at atleasts'??????

Quoted from senders

so companies should pay for workers to get to work????
does this become one of the 'at atleasts'??????

Not saying that the should.  What I'm saying is that in some way, the workers at Shop Rite have negotiated this.  My boss pays for me to get to work too.  It's called paying enough that I can put gas in my tank.  Different jobs pay different rates and include different things.  

Quoted from rampage

Not saying that the should.  What I'm saying is that in some way, the workers at Shop Rite have negotiated this.  My boss pays for me to get to work too.  It's called paying enough that I can put gas in my tank.  Different jobs pay different rates and include different things.  

through the union dues or the store?

Well, usually, the store would pay for it, but the reason the store is paying for it is due to the fact that they have the union dues coming out of their check and the union has negotiated to get it from the store.  It's sort of the same way that if you're in a union and get healthcare benefits, the healthcare benefits will come out of your check separately from the union dues, but the healthcare premiums are negotiated with the money that is taken out for union dues.

cost to groceries????

Either way, it's a cost in the end that the customers are paying, whether the payment for the passes comes out of union dues or out of the amount coming out of the employees checks, since all of the above are paid out of the money that is raised by selling things from the shelves.  Just a matter of which direction the money is siphoned once it is taken.  Semantics, really.  It's all the same.

Quoted from rampage

Either way, it's a cost in the end that the customers are paying, whether the payment for the passes comes out of union dues or out of the amount coming out of the employees checks, since all of the above are paid out of the money that is raised by selling things from the shelves.  Just a matter of which direction the money is siphoned once it is taken.  Semantics, really.  It's all the same.

semantics,,,yes....but when something is 'just there' such as person's personal ability to get one's self to work/harvest
etc is 'provided' by one's keepers....means they own a section of grey matter....

the only assist to get anywhere should be those we don't like ie: jail.

we shouldn't be used to others moving us around like pegs on a board....like it's normal to be herded...

Gotta get the wage slave to work...Don't put the money directly into their paycheck, they may choose to spend it on something besides transportation.  You can't give your worker that freedom.  Just like the wage slave cannot decline health insurance benefits and receive that money directly in their paycheck.  The wage slave might spend that money on something not approved by the corporate masters.  They may actually save that money and someday break their dependency on their masters.