Transit agencies such as BART and MUNI are currently suffering unprecedented budget deficits in the hundreds of millions of dollars. In order to balance their budgets, agency decisionmakers have again relied on their trusty three-pronged formula - raising fares, cutting service, and going after worker concessions.
In many ways, their actions make a great deal of sense. Fares and service delivery are directly under their immediate control, and labor costs - which account for over three-quarters of their budgets - can be tackled by renegotiating contracts with their labor unions. [Note: Capital expenditures such as system expansions, new vehicles, etc. are usually in a separate multi-year capital budget and can't be used to cover operating deficits.]
But year after year of these short-term fixes leave transit agencies in long-term peril. Ridership - arguably the most important factor for long-term sustainability - contracts from higher fares and reduced service. Fall-out from hardball contract negotiations can also cause worker productivity and loyalty to sag, hampering system reliability.
Years of shrinking financial support from the state and feds has left most transit agencies arguing that there just isn't much "fat" left to cut from their budgets.
How does labor figure in all this? The common assumption brought into agency budget crises is that riders are necessarily pitted against labor in a zero-sum game. If the workers win their contracts, then riders will have to pay more and lose more service. And the only way for riders to win is for labor to make major give-backs.
How to escape this never-ending cycle of false dichotomies and non-starting arguments?
For a start, transit agencies need to stop acting the part of parents doling out allowances to their children. In my mind, the people who know best how to save money are those on the front lines - but management won't learn from these workers' experiences if they never give them a seat at the table. Budget season after budget season, I asked that labor be invited to the SF MTA Citizens' Advisory Council to present their thoughts about budget proposals. It never happened.
The other main thing to keep in mind is that most transit agencies operate at a structural deficit (which means that their fares + tax revenues + grants are less than their operating expenses). To succeed in the long-term, agencies need to grow ridership and find new revenue sources.
Over the many years that I served on the Finance and Administration Committee of the SF MTA Citizens' Advisory Council, my councilmembers and I raised concerns that the agency wasn't aggressively pursuing new stable funding sources.
Year after year, the response was the same: "We're in crisis now, and anything that would raise any serious revenues would take either a vote of the people or state legislation." We'd then counter that this is the same story we heard last year and the year before that, and that if the agency had just *started* the process of securing any of these revenue measures, they'd already be in the bank.
A word of advice to BART management and directors: stop viewing your dispute with your workers as a zero-sum game. Try something new - ask them for their ideas to make the system more robust. Perhaps you might find workers a lot more open to changing outdated work rules if you'd recognize that their stake at BART far extends beyond their paychecks.
Comments
Thank goodness someone gets it. Why do you run for one of the Board of Director posts maybe then they could be persuaded from within.
Thanks for your insightful article.
Great idea BART management will never go for this. I personally tried along with other co-workers to get them to understand this concept. If the workers feel like they can help and make a difference they are more acceptable to change with a real purpose to make their work place better. Great Idea hopefully they can read.
Kinda makes sense eh?
Exactly! When BART management started that anti-labor website, I really got a sinking feeling. Setting up an us-vs.-them situation, trying to turn your riders against your workers -- why would this help anything? Thanks for the great article.
The problem, of course, is that it *IS* a zero sum game; the agency only has a certain amount of money, and money going to the unions has to come from somewhere -- either fees from riders or savings from cuts in service.
Your brilliant idea of "let's find new revenue sources" is *ALSO* a zero sum game; money from other government sources must come from somewhere, competing with other funding priorities.
Unless your solution is basically "let's raise taxes". But, hey, taxes come from somewhere, too.
It was The union's who started the anti Managament site first! Cut down on the Number of Operation supervisor's, who have ZERO Training.
I love your article. I work for BART. A few years agao I and another worker wrote a proposal and followed it through the BART system for 14 months to make Lost and Found porperty computerized. BART implemented it, and 2 years, yes 2 year later, rewarded me and my co-worker with a taxable amount in a payroll check of $37.50. Not much of an incentive to come up with more good ideas to help.
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