Monthly Archives: September 2013

California, Health Care, Jerry Brown

Brown Out

Governor Jerry BrownGovernor Jerry Brown waited until late Friday to veto legislation requiring coroners to report to the medical board whenever narcotics cause deaths. The medical establishment has opposed the bill, which is aimed at weeding out the small number of dangerous and drug dealing doctors who are responsible for the vast majority of prescription drug overdose deaths.

Brown cited state costs as his reason, but it just doesn’t add up.  The bill would have cost no more than hundreds of thousands of dollars. The power of the medical establishment is the real motive here, and their distaste for any accountability or transparency.  The arrogance of medical-pharmaceutical complex is astounding, but what’s really disturbing is that they have Jerry Brown’s ear and pen.

The Los Angeles Times did a groundbreaking investigation of prescription overdose deaths and dirty doctors based on obtaining coroner reports like the ones that SB 62 would have required to be reported to the medical board. The fact that such a simple measure cannot get past the governor’s desk shows why we need to go to the ballot with the Troy and Alana Pack Patient Safety Act, which requires mandatory drug testing of physicians and other patient safety measures.

Drug testing physicians is not only critical to protecting the public from substance abusing doctors, but it is also remedies another epidemic — the belief by the doctors lobby that they are above it all.  Make them pee in a cup and some of the arrogance we have been witnessing in response to common sense measures like SB 62 will be reduced too.

After today, it might be wise to make Governor Brown pee in a cup too. The loss of judgement and clarity in the deliberation of SB 62 makes one wonder.

Posted by Jamie Court, author of The Progressive’s Guide to Raising Hell and President of Consumer Watchdog, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to providing an effective voice for taxpayers and consumers in an era when special interests dominate public discourse, government and politics. Visit us on Facebook and Twitter.

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California Must Foster the Takeoff of EVs

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Green living is the future.  But the power of our everyday actions to aid the environment can only be unleashed when green choices become a bigger part of our lives.  

This is why Electric Vehicle (EV) Week is so important.  All week, events from San Francisco to Silicon Valley are showcasing the potential for electric vehicle technology to change the world – one car at a time.  Before the week is over, I urge Governor Jerry Brown to sign legislation maintaining a vital incentive for Californians to buy electric vehicles.

As is the case with any new technology, electric cars must compete on both cost and convenience.  Although my efforts to expand electric vehicle tax credits are ongoing, the governor has a chance to ensure that electric vehicles are significantly more convenient than other cars.

If signed into law, AB 266 and SB 286 will extend the Clean Air Vehicle Sticker Program for 5 years.  It gives plug-in drivers a fast pass through traffic as an incentive to invest in electric vehicle technology.  More specifically, the owners of plug-in cars may drive alone in carpool lanes and for free in carpool lanes converted to toll roads.  But first they must obtain and place on their vehicle a set of special stickers from the DMV.  

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AB 266 extends the validity of the “white sticker,” which extends these fast pass benefits to owners of electric and other zero-emission vehicles.  SB 286 extends the “green sticker” that is available to plug-in hybrid owners.  Without these bills, the sticker program expires in 15 months.  That would be a huge loss.

Across California, there are nearly 30,000 white-stickered cars and 16,000 green-stickered cars.  As a percentage, it’s a rounding error among the 28 million vehicles on our roads.  We need to up these numbers to get cleaner air, reduce the incidence of respiratory disease, and confront climate change.

California has the toughest clean air and clean fuel standards in the nation.  Yet, transportation continues to be the source of 40 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions and smog.  Clearly, we must think beyond petroleum and encourage more Californians to buy cleaner cars.  Electric cars.

Governor Brown agrees.  Last year, he signed an executive order outlining an aspirational goal for California to have 1.5 million zero emission vehicles on its roads by 2025.  We have a long way to go and a short time to get there.  

This is one among many reasons why we must extend the sticker program.  California’s car market is booming.  Sales estimates are projected to be 1.7 million new cars this year – nearly double their recessionary low in 2009.  Consumer barriers to electric technology are decreasing.  Car manufacturers are offering more and less expensive electric cars than ever.  And, Californians can finally finance the cost and in-home installation of accelerated charging equipment with a car dealership when purchasing an electric car.

Furthermore, as the home of many electric car companies, extending this program will keep good green jobs right here in California by sending a firm signal to manufacturers that we want to nurture this industry.

We need to build on this momentum and create a mindset for Californians to consider the environment when buying a car.  This is the future.  We must embrace it so that electric vehicle technology can take off rapidly.  

Phil Ting represents the 19th Assembly District, which includes portions of San Francisco and South San Francisco along with Daly City and Colma.

Jerry Brown

Governor Signs AB241 for Domestic Workers Rights

AB 241 Signing - Domestic Workers BoR photo 13891_10151725720789121_289135131_n_zpsf1df0b21.jpgBill requires overtime pay for home care workers

by Brian Leubitz

While overtime pay has been required for decades in most industries, domestic workers have always been exempted. While the logic is far from clear, home health care workers, nannies and other home care workers were simply left out of the arrangement. AB 241 changes that:

“Domestic workers are primarily women of color, many of them immigrants, and their work has not been respected in the past,” said Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), the bill’s author. “Now they will be entitled to overtime, like just about every other California working person.”(LA Times)

Now, that is not to say that AB 241 goes as far as Asm. Ammiano wanted to go with his domestic workers bill. Last year’s AB 889, which was vetoed by the governor (veto message here), would have guaranteed meal breaks and other rights.  However, this bill does commission a study to review the totality of working conditions for domestic workers to be completed by 2017 and that could provide the data for further protections.

All that being said, overtime is a great first step for domestic workers, and groups like Mujeres Unidas y Activas celebrated the victory yesterday at the signing.

MUA is so proud of this victory and the role we have played in this work over the past 8 years.  We know that the work truly just begins now – the work of educating workers about their rights and employers about their responsibilities, the work of building the base of organized worker to reach the thousands and hundreds of thousands in California, the work of sharing the story and model of our organizing campaign with our sisters across the country who are just starting this journey, the work of winning even more rights and protections for domestic workers, and the work of changing our culture to respect and recognize the work that makes all other work possible.

Jerry Brown

California Stands Up to “Education Reform”

Brown moves state away from DC-centric reformers

by Brian Leubitz

Not only is Jerry Brown standing up to Arne Duncan on testing, but he’s also something of a pioneer in tweaking the school funding formulas.  Sure, our per pupil spending is still shockingly low, but with our recovery, we have a little more money to shift around. It’s how that shifting is going to work that has brought the state into the disagreement with so-called education reformers.

As I noted in a post last week, California and Washington have taken distinctly different approaches to achievement gaps that increasingly are most closely associated with economic inequality. Rather than focusing on firing “bad” teachers and closing schools, California has moved to direct more resources to low-income districts and increase local decision-making, with sanctions a last resort after support and technical assistance have failed. …

In March, the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, headed by Brown’s appointee Linda Darling-Hammond, pushed back against the federal predilection to ensure teacher quality by de-emphasizing preparation standards in favor of a holy grail of downstream effectiveness measures. The Commission voted to ramp up pre-service training requirements for interns teaching English learners and in-service supervision requirements for all interns, particularly those teaching ELs. And Washington’s darlings, Teach for America and the charter school lobby, suffered a rare loss when the credentialing commission determined “innovation” can’t excuse putting teachers who know little or nothing about teaching English as a second language in front of English learners.(EdSource)

I had a few friends that went through the TeachForAmerica program, and I know it was an extremely beneficial experience for them. However, it is far from clear that the same can be said to be true for the students. Test results don’t really bear it out, and simple common sense should dictate that enthusiasm alone won’t replace the years of training that helps to make good teachers for our students.

Moreover, the Governor has been one of the bigger supporters of reforming our testing system, as shown through that recent fight with Sec. Duncan over testing and the new Common Core Curriculum. NCLB has been something of a disaster for our long term competitiveness. It made many of our students good test takers and really solid at learning how to jump through hoops. But “fill in the bubbles” testing gives us a very two-dimensional description of our students. Gov. Brown has been focused on testing that covers more ground and emphasizes the skills that the students need.

These tests are a little more difficult to develop, and in the best case scenario aren’t delivered as often. That, of course, doesn’t make the education reformers all that happy. But it is in the best interests of our students and our teachers. While some would argue that “America’s Greatest Eduation Governor 2013” is too close to CTA, it is clear that he is working with the teachers for the benefit of our students. We need to keep good teachers in the classroom, and encourage below average teachers to become better. The Governor is working with CTA to do that, a laudable goal from any perspective.

The whole EdSource article is worth a read, but if nothing else, this is a solid takeaway:

Is it too much to hope that Washington will begin taking notice and start moving toward the anti-poverty educational policies being pursued in the state where one in eight public school students attend school? Or perhaps the best we can hope for is that continued partisan gridlock in D.C. will continue to create opportunities for California to go its own way.(EdSource)

Not only should California be allowed to develop our own reforms, other states should work to emulate our programs where they prove to be successful. Gov. Brown deserves a lot of credit for his continued strong education record.

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Revealed: Draft of Pension-Cutting Ballot Initiative

By Gary Cohn

In a move to slash the retirement benefits of public employees in California, a group of mostly conservative policy advocates has been working behind the scenes on a possible 2014 ballot initiative. A copy of the still-secret draft initiative, which could dramatically impact the lives of hundreds of thousands of Californians and send a signal nationwide, has been obtained by Frying Pan News. (See the document’s text following this article or click here.)

If enacted, the proposed law would allow the state and local governments to cut back retirement benefits for current employees for the years of work they perform after the changes go into effect. Previous efforts to curb retirement benefits for public employees have largely focused on newly hired workers, but the initiative would shrink pensions for workers who are currently on the job.

“This initiative defines that a government employee’s ‘vested rights’ only applies to pension and retiree healthcare benefits earned for service already rendered, and explicitly empowers government employers and the voters to amend pension and retiree healthcare benefits for an employee’s future years of service,” the private draft states.

In other words, current state and municipal workers’ retirement benefits will only be partially guaranteed by the number of years they have already worked; from the time the initiative becomes law, the accrual of those benefits will be drastically curtailed.

One of the rationales provided by the draft ballot to justify its unprecedented reach into the lives of public employees is the ongoing funding shortfalls that California and many of its cities find themselves confronting. But, while pledging to help the state “maintain retirement plans that are sustainable, fiscally sound and able to meet the commitments to its employees,” the draft also claims its reduction of pension benefits is being carried out “[i]n order to protect the government’s ability to provide essential services to the public.”

The draft initiative is being circulated by San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, who successfully pushed a pension-busting ballot initiative in his city’s 2012 election. That law, like a similar one passed the same year in San Diego, is currently being challenged in court. Reed, according to several sources, has been circulating the draft among other mayors, public officials and others in California who believe that public employee pensions should be scaled back.

Following repeated attempts to reach Reed for comment on the draft ballot, Frying Pan News received what appeared to be confirmation of its authenticity in an email sent by a Reed press aide:

“Throughout this process, there have been numerous discussions about policy options and multiple versions of draft language, so it’s impossible to tell what it is you may have. However, the substance of that statement is consistent with what the Mayor has advocated for more than a year.”

Marcia Fritz, president of the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, goes further and says, “I’ve seen the draft – I don’t know if it’s final yet. I’ve been asked to weigh in on it.”

Dave Low, chairman of Californians for Retirement Security, a coalition that represents more than 1.5 million public employees, says that the draft measure being circulated by Mayor Reed and others would “take promised retirement benefits away from teachers, nurses, firefighters and other public employees.” He adds that courts have consistently decided that it is not permissible to cut promised retirement benefits to public employees. “A promise made should be a promise kept,” Low says.

Chuck Reed, a Democrat, has increasingly been seen as the public, bipartisan face of a nationwide effort to scale back retirement benefits for public employees. But behind the scenes, this effort is quietly spearheaded by a host of largely conservative individuals and organizations.

In May, for example, Reed was only one of dozens of people present at a closed-door pension summit held at a Sacramento hotel, where strategies to limit public retirement benefits were discussed. And earlier this week, Frying Pan News reported that the Pew Center on the States, an arm of the respected Pew Charitable Trusts, had formed an unusual partnership with the Laura and John Arnold Foundation in an effort to curb public employee pensions in several states.

The movement to curtail public employee pension benefits in California is being watched closely around the nation. Both those who favor curbing pensions and those who oppose it agree that any ballot initiative, such as the one laid out in Reed’s blueprint, will involve a lengthy and costly fight.

“The problem with initiatives is that public employee labor unions are very strong in fighting them,” says Jeff Adachi, the elected Public Defender in San Francisco and the man behind an unsuccessful initiative to curb pension benefits in that city. “It’s a tough route to go.”

That would seem to be borne out by reactions to Reed’s initiative from organized labor, whose representatives blame politicians’ inability to find the resources to give retirees the benefits they promised workers in the form of negotiated contracts. They also point to figures put out by the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) showing that the average public employee retires on only $2,629 a month.

Others decry what they regard as the naked unfairness of having rules changed on them in mid-career. One such person is Lori Adams, a 46-year-old Burbank High School math teacher. She has been a public school teacher for 16 years and is planning to teach for at least another 14 years.

“If you went to a bank and made an agreement for a car loan or a house loan, and then in the middle years they decide to change your rate – that’s not fair,” says Adams, who is also president of the Burbank Teachers Association. “It’s making a deal when you sign it and in the middle of the game changing the rules. You make life decisions based on it.”

Marcia Fritz and others, however, see the ballot initiative as an opportunity to clarify what they regard as murky rules regarding state and municipal workers’ retirement plans.

“It’s putting public employees on the same page as employees in the private sector,” says Fritz. Yet initiative opponents, including Jennifer Baker, a retirement expert with the California Teachers Association, see no reason why public employees should be placed in the same category as workers in the traditionally more lucrative private sector.

“If individuals don’t make high salaries,” Baker says of public employees, “at least they have modest retirement benefits. If you’re going to cut that, you’re going to discourage potential teachers – people with bachelor’s or master’s degrees – from even considering entering the profession.”

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Text of draft ballot initiative:

OBJECTIVE:

In order to protect the government’s ability to: a) provide essential services to the public, and b) maintain retirement plans that are sustainable, fiscally-sound and able to meet the commitments to its employees, this initiative empowers the people of California to take the actions necessary to control the escalating costs of public employee retirement benefits.

INITIATIVE PROVISIONS:

This initiative defines that a government employee’s “vested rights” only applies to pension and retiree healthcare benefits earned for service already rendered, and explicitly empowers government employers and the voters to amend pension and retiree healthcare benefits for an employee’s future years of service.

– These provisions would apply to all future government employees.

– These provisions would apply to all current government employees, unless there is clear and convincing evidence that his/her employer intended to create a vested right to a particular level of retirement benefits for future years of service.

– The initiative would also allow all government employers to temporarily amend its retirement benefits for all employees’ future years of service if: a) they are facing a fiscal emergency or b) their retirement plan is “at-risk” according to the standards established by the federal government for private pension plans.

[Note: this provision remains subject to further refinement and discussion] For any public employee plan that is “at-risk” as defined by federal laws governing private pension plans, the government employer will be required to prospectively modify its employee pension benefits in such a way that will lift the plan out of “at-risk” status within XX years. If such action is not taken within two years, the government employer would be required to… (Potential Options: require employees to pay 50% of all pension costs, increase employee and/or employer contributions into the plan by XX, etc.)

Nothing in this initiative affects the retirement benefits that a government employee has earned and accrued for prior years of service.

Government employers and/or the voters would be required to wait until current labor contracts expire before adopting any changes to employee retirement benefits.

This initiative prohibits the State of California, CalPERS, and other government boards from interfering with elected leaders’ or voters’ ability to amend their public employee pension plans for employee’ future years of service (this includes prohibiting CalPERS from charging exorbitant termination fees to government employers who wish to amend their pension plans).

This initiative would apply to the State of California and all political subdivisions of the state, including, but not limited to, counties, cities, school districts, special districts, boards, commissions, the University of California, and California State University.

(Gary Cohn writes for Frying Pan News.)

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Governor Signs Minimum Wage Increase

photo hoursapartment_zps9fc26c03.jpgBig win for California’s workers

by Brian Leubitz

Those working at the minimum wage have to work several jobs to get by in most of California’s communities. The Governor helped that somewhat today:

Gov. Jerry Brown this morning signed legislation to raise California’s minimum wage by 25 percent, from $8 an hour to $10 an hour by 2016.

The bill, celebrated by Brown and his labor union allies at an event in Los Angeles, promises the first increase in California’s hourly minimum since 2008, when the minimum wage was raised 50 cents to $8. …

Assembly Bill 10, by Assemblyman Luis Alejo, D-Watsonville, will raise the minimum wage from $8 to $9 an hour on July 1, 2014, and to $10 on Jan. 1, 2016. (SacBee)

Now, under the current minimum wage, the average Californian needs to work 129 hours to pay for an apartment in the state. To be clear, that is working about 18.5 hours per day, seven days per week. And forget about some of the more expensive communities, like San Francisco where one bedrooms can go up to $3,000 per month for a standard unit in the eastern half of the city.

This bill will help somewhat with this issue, but clearly we need to encourage more affordable housing within easy transit distance of our city cores. And we haven’t even gotten to providing greater access to healthy food and quality schools…

All that being said, this is a positive first step for millions of Californians. Congratulations to Gov. Brown, Asm. Alejo, and all those who worked to get this bill passed.

Jerry Brown, Prisons

Court Grants 4 Week Prison Delay To Pursue Settlement

Mule Creek State Prison, from Brown v. PlataCourt is putting finger on the scales toward a settlement

by Brian Leubitz

The Court has been pretty upfront with their displeasure with the progress on prison population reduction. But perhaps they are also less than thrilled with the simple private prisons option and see a ray of light with the proposals that the Senate Democrats brought to the issue.  Either way, the Court granted the state four weeks, moving the date back from the end of the year until Jan 27, 2014. (PDF of the order). Here’s the important part for that delay:

The December 31, 2013 deadline shall be extended until January 27, 2014, without prejudice to the parties’ filing a joint request for a further extension or the Court so ordering. During the meet-and-confer process and until further order of the Court, defendants shall not enter into any contracts or other arrangements to lease additional capacity in out-of-state facilities or otherwise increase the number of inmates who are housed in out-of-state facilities.

Now, four weeks, you are thinking? Well, the judges have a plan for those four weeks. As mentioned in that last paragraph (actually the third of three paragraphs in the order), the state and the plaintiffs in the case were ordered to a negotiation process overseen by First District Court of Appeal Justice Peter Siggins. Justice Siggins will then notify the Three Judge Panel on Oct 21 whether there is hope for a settlement. Specifically, he was tasked with looking at a number of options to reducing populations, which apparently the Court finds preferable to the leasing additional capacity.

The meet-and-confer process shall explore how defendants can comply with this Court’s June 20, 2013 Order, including means and dates by which such compliance can be expedited or accomplished and how this Court can ensure a durable solution to the prison crowding problem.  The discussions shall specifically include: (a) three strikers; (b) juveniles; (c) the elderly and the medically infirm; (d) Immigration and Customs Enforcement prisoners; (e) the implementation of the Low Risk List; and (f) any other means, including relocation within the state, that are included in defendants’ May 2, 2013 List.  Justice Siggins and the parties may also discuss any necessary or desirable extension of the December 31, 2013 deadline beyond that provided for in the final paragraph of this order, as well as any other matters they deem appropriate.

These criteria are remarkably similar to a letter written by the ACLU to the Governor on how we could release prisoners without leasing additional capacity. So clearly the court is looking for an option beyond the Governor’s plan, and appreciates the dialog that the Legislature had with the Senate’s plan. Of course, at the heart of the Senate Democrats plan was a three year delay brought about by a settlement with the plaintiffs.

This is a lot of reading of tea leaves out of a three paragraph order. But if some progress can be made over the next four weeks, maybe we can spend a little more time reforming the heart of the troubling system as the Senate Democrats hoped to do.

Three Judge Panel Grants 4 Week Delay

Health Care

Is Your Doctor Opposed To Peeing In A Cup? Check The List

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Does Your Doctor Oppose Patient Safety ReformA drunk Orange County plastic surgeon reportedly disfigured at least a half dozen patients before losing his license. A Rocklin anesthesiologist was arrested for taking anesthesia through an extra IV line while administering it to a patient.  A meth-using doctor who was convicted of drug dealing will get his doctor’s license back after a year.

Does your doctor oppose mandatory drug testing for physicians? Check the list.

Substance abuse among California physicians is higher than the general population, yet unlike bus drivers and pilots, physicians don’t have to take drug tests.  A proposed patient safety ballot measure requires mandatory drug testing of physicians, but a group of doctors is raising big bucks to stop these and other common sense patient safety measures.

Consumer Watchdog has published the list of doctors across the state who have given money to the opponents of the Troy and Alana Pack Patient Safety Act. We think patients should know if their doctors are standing in the way of their safety and will be sharing the list with millions of Californians.

Troy, 10 years old, and Alana, 7, were hit and killed by a drug abusing driver prescribed thousands of pills by negligent physicians. Their dad, Bob Pack, is the author of the ballot measure to create mandatory drug testing among physicians, require doctors to use an electronic prescription drug database and modernize patient safety laws.

Check the list and ask your doctor if he or she opposes modest patient safety reforms.

It’s time for the medical establishment to explain why it is resisting common sense solutions to weed out the small number of dangerous and dirty doctors that commit the vast majority of medical malpractice.

Posted by Jamie Court, author of The Progressive’s Guide to Raising Hell and President of Consumer Watchdog, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to providing an effective voice for taxpayers and consumers in an era when special interests dominate public discourse, government and politics. Visit us on Facebook and Twitter.

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When Funding Government is Optional

photo da900a574f264d21d956f7f1a97259d1_533x288_zps4af63970.jpgRhode Island town uses Kickstarter approach to government

by Brian Leubitz

While not strictly California news, with the number of California cities in bankruptcy right now, the story of a town in Rhode Island looking to crowdfunding is worth a read:

Central Falls, Rhode Island went bankrupt in 2011 after promising overly generous pensions to city employees. The city pulled itself out of bankruptcy last year and must now stick to a penny-pinching plan with no room for error or for luxuries like trash cans and public art. As a result, the impoverished city is getting creative: it’s now raising $10,044 on the civic crowdfunding platform Citizinvestor in order to clean up its main public park. It’s raised $245 so far. ([The Verge ])

Lest we think this is all very far away, San Mateo County is using the site to ask for money for fire rings at a county park and several other projects. The site is a bit spartan now, but it seems to be a growing business.

At one point in our history, taxes were used as the “crowdfunding” in order to purchased shared goods and services. Now that we have decided low taxes are more important than a government that can meet our needs, “luxuries” like bike parking and fire rings are supposed to be paid for out of your own good will.

Now, the service does allow for tax deductions, but shouldn’t we be focused on fixing the problems that are at the heart of these problems? For years, the “waste, fraud, and abuse” line was trotted out at every turn, with very little actual evidence as taxes were slashed. And now we are dealing with the ramifications, municipalities are forced to seek “out of the box” solutions that rely on good will alone.

It seems a risky proposition, at the very least.

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BART Management’s Refusal to Compromise Will Have Dire Consequences for Bay Area

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by Art Pulaski, California Labor Federation

Negotiating a fair contract is a complex process that involves hard work and commitment from both labor and management. When both sides bargain in good faith and share a goal of securing a deal, a deal eventually gets done. I’ve personally been involved in many tough negotiations that ended with a fair deal that both parties could live with. It takes patience and willingness from both sides to compromise.

In the BART negotiations, unfortunately that hasn’t been the case. BART management paid Thomas Hock, an out-of-state lawyer with a history of driving disputes to a strike, nearly $400,000 to lead negotiations. Hock and his company have been responsible for seven strikes, 47 unfair labor practice charges and nine discrimination lawsuits. Not exactly a history of committing to compromise in order to secure a deal.

True to form, Hock hasn’t been serious about negotiating a resolution at BART that would spare the Bay Area a strike. Instead, he’s taken several vacations since he’s been on board. When he has bothered to show up at the negotiating table, he’s stonewalled. And now Hock and BART management have stopped negotiating altogether and are preparing for a strike.

Even worse, BART is saying that it will run a number of trains during a strike operated by managers who lack the minimum requirements to safely get BART riders to and from their destinations. In essence, BART is willing to sacrifice the safety of riders by pushing this dispute to a strike so that they ultimately get their way. There’s no regard for workers. No regard for riders impacted by a strike. It’s BART management’s way or — literally — the clogged highway.

The BART unions have made significant compromises in recent days with the goal of averting a strike, including last week’s concession on wages. The unions have come to the table seeking honest, good-faith negotiations to broker a deal before the 60-day cooling off period ends. They’ve proposed a modest 4.5 percent wage increase over three years after a five-year wage freeze, while offering to contribute more to their health care and retirement. It’s a fair proposal given BART’s relatively strong financial position. The unions have also sought important safety protections for riders and workers including opening more restrooms and providing for more secure stations at night, only to be rebuffed time and time again by Hock and the BART management team.

There’s still time to come to a deal that would avert a strike and ensure the safety of BART riders isn’t jeopardized. But the unions can’t negotiate by themselves. It’s going to take a commitment from both sides to negotiate non-stop, if necessary, to get that done. If Hock and the BART management team continue to refuse to negotiate, there’s only one option: a strike. Elected officials and BART directors must demand that management joins the unions at the negotiating table for round-the-clock, good-faith negotiations until a fair settlement is reached.

There’s a lot at stake for BART workers and their families as well as the hundreds of thousands of riders that count on BART to get to work, school and other destinations. Workers want to continue doing the job they’ve done exceedingly well for years. Riders want the trains to keep running. The only thing preventing a deal from getting done is BART management’s unwillingness to compromise. To avert a strike, that needs to change.