If you live in the Bay Area, get ready for some traffic headaches. BART is speeding into the station, but the train might stay there for a while:
BART train operators and station agents vowed to strike after regular service ends at midnight Sunday, which effectively would shut down the regional rail agency and force hundreds of thousands of Bay Area commuters to find alternate ways to travel Monday morning.
The decision by union leadership came after the BART Board of Directors voted unanimously Thursday to unilaterally impose a one-year contract on workers represented by Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555.
“At this point we have no choice but to initiate a work action,” said Jesse Hunt, president of the union local that represents about 900 of BART’s 3,200 workers.(SF Chronicle 8/14/09)
There was a settlement a week ago, but the contract was defeated by 1555’s members. The union leadership itself wasn’t particularly thrilled with the contract, which kind of makes it difficult to sell it your membership. The big hangup appears to be the length of the contract, four years. The workers understand that they are going to take a hit this year, but they don’t particularly appreciate the fact that they have to take it for such a long period of time before they have the offer to renegotiate.
However, 1555 is open to further negotiations, and there are rumors that something could be sorted out over the weekend. With luck, we’ll avoid any long-term BART closure and a fair contract deal can be reached. A strike would toss the entire Bay Area into a fair bit of chaos.
both sides suck. BART management spent a lot of money on a pricey consultant and decided to attack BART workers and go super anti union. That’s fucked. But the union is smoking crack if they think BART can come up with the money to pay for all the goodies they want. Arnie and the Democrats eliminated Transit funding after cutting it for years ( gotta love all those Democrats who supported killing mass transit!!!) and there’s no revenue to make up that huge gap.
so to both sides I’ve issued a general “Fuck YOU!” and they both suck.
I can tell you, as a regular BART rider, that I’ve got absolutely no sympathies for the overpaid BART workers. I’ve always been a union supporter, but with public employee unions negotiating grossly over-generous pay and retirement packages ($250K firefighter retirements anyone?) that I’m over the whole thing. If it were possible I’d fire all 2300 BART workers, management included and privatize the whole thing I would
I’m with Robert on this one?
For those of you who opposed the budget, and those who supported it too: well, part of what the budget has meant at the state level (and since Arnold is stealing local money for his budget, at the local level as well) means is that the state is asking its workers to accept reduced standards of living and in some cases, the loss of their jobs.
Where do you get off telling those people they should pay for this budget? Are you giving up a portion of your salary or your benefits due to this budget? Would you accept the loss of pay from your own fucking job or from your own fucking benefits to pay for this budget?
Don’t talk about people in abstract. In abstract counts for nothing. What are you paying, personally, for this budget?
We collective employ these people. If we are asking them to take a pay cut, they are entitled to oppose this. And that means, in some cases, going out on strike.
Enough of this shit about the public good. We Californians betrayed these people. If we won’t defend their rights, we have no basis of complaint that they are trying to protect their own interests.
Hypocrites, the lot of you.