{"id":15106,"date":"2013-07-01T20:22:23","date_gmt":"2013-07-01T20:22:23","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2014-02-12T03:05:22","modified_gmt":"2014-02-12T03:05:22","slug":"the-rising-tide-that-isnt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/2013\/07\/01\/the-rising-tide-that-isnt\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rising Tide that Isn&#8217;t: BART Goes on Strike"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-wZqQ5LQI3k?rel=0&#038;start=145\" frameborder=\"0\" align=right allowfullscreen><\/iframe><i>BART strike brings visible face to declining conditions for workers<\/i><\/p>\n<p>by Brian Leubitz<\/p>\n<p>The BART strike was certainly preventable, but it was equally certainly no surprise. &nbsp;Following a long line of government employees facing pay cuts and furloughs, BART workers have the strongest weapon: a transit strike that makes the public sit up and notice. &nbsp;And unfortunately, that has happened:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The final trains of the Sunday shift will finish up their runs. But there will be no service Monday, with the transit system&#8217;s workers and management agreeing only on the fact that the two sides remain far apart in contract negotiations. Instead of reporting to work, BART union employees will carry picket signs and distribute leaflets at most stations. (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/bayarea\/article\/BART-workers-on-strike-no-service-Monday-4639593.php\">SF Chronicle<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kqed.org\/a\/forum\/R201307010900\">KQED Forum had an interesting program on the strike this morning<\/a>, and the number of vociferous anti-union comments were somewhat surprisng. Now, you have to discount for the fact that conservatives always dominate this kind of program, but the angst is real. <\/p>\n<p>For years, workers have been getting the raw deal. But this is universal, both public and private sector workers have seen wages stagnate while productivity is driven to higher and higher levels. However, for whatever reason, labor gets the negative press at every negotiation. The saying goes that workers should be happy to just have a job at all.<\/p>\n<p>However, while the stock market rises and the wealthy grab an ever increasing level of income, how much longer can we continue to think this way? A rising tide, and a more equitable distribution of income is sure to yield better results for economy. But, the rich have the larger megaphones, and so labor frequently gets drowned out. But unless more income trickles down to the middle class, our economy will face some very serious challenges and questions of long-term sustainability.<\/p>\n<p>There will be recriminations in both directions with this strike. And while there may be some uncomfortable moments, we cannot let the media create a false equivalence. We need to stand with BART workers, for worker safety and for living wages for all Californians. But BART workers aren&#8217;t the only ones on fighting for fair treatment of workers: AFSCME 3299 workers are fighting the UC system for good patient care and living wages for low-wage workers. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.afscme3299.org\/\">Click here to get more information<\/a> about their actions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-wZqQ5LQI3k?rel=0&#038;start=145\" frameborder=\"0\" align=right allowfullscreen><\/iframe><i>BART strike brings visible face to declining conditions for workers<\/i><\/p>\n<p>by Brian Leubitz<\/p>\n<p>The BART strike was certainly preventable, but it was equally certainly no surprise. &nbsp;Following a long line of government employees facing pay cuts and furloughs, BART workers have the strongest weapon: a transit strike that makes the public sit up and notice. &nbsp;And unfortunately, that has happened:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The final trains of the Sunday shift will finish up their runs. But there will be no service Monday, with the transit system&#8217;s workers and management agreeing only on the fact that the two sides remain far apart in contract negotiations. Instead of reporting to work, BART union employees will carry picket signs and distribute leaflets at most stations. (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/bayarea\/article\/BART-workers-on-strike-no-service-Monday-4639593.php\">SF Chronicle<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kqed.org\/a\/forum\/R201307010900\">KQED Forum had an interesting program on the strike this morning<\/a>, and the number of vociferous anti-union comments were somewhat surprisng. Now, you have to discount for the fact that conservatives always dominate this kind of program, but the angst is real. <\/p>\n<p>For years, workers have been getting the raw deal. But this is universal, both public and private sector workers have seen wages stagnate while productivity is driven to higher and higher levels. However, for whatever reason, labor gets the negative press at every negotiation. The saying goes that workers should be happy to just have a job at all.<\/p>\n<p>However, while the stock market rises and the wealthy grab an ever increasing level of income, how much longer can we continue to think this way? A rising tide, and a more equitable distribution of income is sure to yield better results for economy. But, the rich have the larger megaphones, and so labor frequently gets drowned out. But unless more income trickles down to the middle class, our economy will face some very serious challenges and questions of long-term sustainability.<\/p>\n<p>There will be recriminations in both directions with this strike. And while there may be some uncomfortable moments, we cannot let the media create a false equivalence. We need to stand with BART workers, for worker safety and for living wages for all Californians. But BART workers aren&#8217;t the only ones on fighting for fair treatment of workers: AFSCME 3299 workers are fighting the UC system for good patient care and living wages for low-wage workers. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.afscme3299.org\/\">Click here to get more information<\/a> about their actions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22],"tags":[1152,978],"class_list":["post-15106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-22","tag-1152","tag-978"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pvhz-3VE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15106\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}