Wendi C. Thomas: Memphis weak bus system creates 2-hour trip to $9 an hour low-skilled jobs Few buses to new suburban call center jobs If you’re unemployed and have only a high school diploma, Wednesday’s announcement that 300 call center jobs are coming soon to northeast Shelby County is welcome news. But if you rely on the bus to get from, say South Memphis to the Conduit Global offices, it will take you about two hours. For the last couple miles, you’d have to walk or take an $11 cab ride. The city’s unemployment rate is 9.5 percent, so any job is better than none, especially these low-skilled jobs that call for computer skills and ideally, some customer service experience. Let me be clear: This isn’t an attack on the Memphis Area Transit Authority, which began the fiscal year with a $4.5 million deficit. It’s not a criticism of Conduit Global, which promises to hire 1,000 workers by 2018. But do starter jobs paying between $9 and $15 an hour so far from the poorest neighborhoods warrant the hype at this week’s news conference at the FedExForum? Bennett Foster, co-chair for the 400-member Memphis Bus Riders Union, isn’t sure. “The kind of jobs that the call center is presenting, that is the kind of thing we need here, where they’re providing training,” Foster said. “But the fact is that Memphis has such an enormous population of unskilled labor and people living in poverty.” He predicts that Conduit will easily find 1,000 employees for whom transportation is no problem. The weak public transit system hasn’t escaped the notice of Dexter Muller, interim president for the Greater Memphis Chamber. He remembers the summer high school interns who lived in North Memphis but had jobs in Hickory Hill. “It’d take them two hours to get to work, but they did it because they wanted the experience,” Muller said. “That’s a lot to expect from a young person, and certainly anyone who is going to do that on a regular basis. “We can do better than that.” In another instance, an employee who couldn’t afford to drive back and forth to work, slept in the parking lot, in a co-worker’s car who worked a different shift. “It’s our job to make sure they don’t have to do that,” Muller said. Van pools and ride-sharing programs would not only make transportation easier, but also take cars off the road and more pollution out of the air, Muller said. “There certainly is the capability to make both of those things work,” he said. MATA is open to extending routes, said interim MATA president Tom Fox, if there’s enough demand and funding partners. That’s great, but Conduit is accepting applications online now. Say you live near Alcy Elementary, one of the Shelby County Schools that could be shuttered this summer. To make a 9 a.m. shift, you’d be on your way to work about 6:30 a.m. You’d start with a mile-long walk to catch the 42 by 6:50 a.m. at Elvis Presley and Alcy. At 7:17 a.m., get off at Watkins and North Parkway and it’s a short walk to Galloway and Watkins. Take the 53 to Macon Road near Heathcliff, not far from the Bass Pro shop at Sycamore View and I-40. You’re getting close — Goodlett Farms office park, where Conduit will take over 25,000 square feet in a former call center, is just 2.2 miles away. Take a cab and you’ll be at work by 8:23. “Nobody’s going to take a cab from a bus stop, they’d just end up walking,” Foster said. Walk and you’ll get to work with three minutes to spare.
Posted on: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 23:26:06 +0000
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