The latest update to the possible SF Bay Area BART strike is that management’s new contract offer released last Thursday night just hours before the labor pact agreement was to expire has been voted down unanimously by one BART union. More BART unions are set to vote on the agreement throughout the week, so a BART strike is not yet certain. Some say negotiations will resume if it is rejected across the board.Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 1555, has close to 900 members and is the second largest BART union. On Thursday, BART’s largest union with about 1400 members, Service Employees International Union, Local 1021, will vote. Not until the votes are in will the decision to be made to strike or not.
BART Strike Talk and Contract Specifics
There aren’t very many details about what exactly management is offering at this point, though Larry Gerber, the chief negotiator for Service Employees International Union, Local 1021, characterized the offer as “not very good,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Some of the specifics that have been released, include a “three-year wage freeze, a small raise in the fourth year, reductions in health and pension benefits and changes to work rules,” according to SFGate.com.
As the voting continues, BART employees will continue working.
BART Strikes in the Future: What to Expect
Gerber says that if management’s offered is rejected by most of BART’s union employees, “we plan to ask the governor for a cooling-off period." If that happens, there will be no strike or management lockout for at least another 60 days as both sides re-group and prepare to come back to the table.
The president of Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 1555, Jim Hunt, wants to restart negotiations as early as Friday in hopes of encouraging management to accept their offer to save money by altering the retirement health plan.
Says Hunt: "Negotiations are about meeting the other side halfway, and we don't feel that BART executives have been doing that up til now."
If they do decide to strike, Union leaders have said that they will give “reasonable” notice.
For your commute and travel options in the event of a BART strike, check out the San Francisco Metro Transit Authority’s suggestions.
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Comments
Add more buses and let them use the fast lanes on the freeways. No cars allowed. Also add more trains and that should work for the best.
The unions are blackmailers! Give back to the community and help out in these tough times.
BART employees have been pampered from day 1. Just wish they get rid of all of them. I guarantee there will be a long line of people who may be better qualified than these knuckleheads who will work for less than 1/2 what these people make. Have they looked at the wages and benefits in the private sector? Majority of private employees do not get pension, health benefits after they retire after years of service. Just because they work in an industry where they can hold everyone hostage they are behaving like children. Our politicians have pampered them. Get rid of these scum! Give others a chance.
If you can drive a car, you can drive a BART train! What do the station agents do? See why your ticket is not working? Unclog jammed machines?
Since there won't be trains using the transbay tube why not open it up to bicyclists? Bikes will probably be much fater that the car strangled spanner up avove.
Eat merde bart workers. I am starving while you are paid 10 times what you are worth.
Foutre Bart workers. I hope they rot in hell.
Unions had a place in history, long ago when we didn't have government agencies like OSHA to protect workers from unsafe and dangerous work environments. Now, all they do is try to get their members paid more for doing less work.
BART unions are some of the worst of the bunch. To make the money they make for sitting on their fannies and watching turn-styles or flipping switches on a train and announcing stops is absurd.
Fire them all and make them and replace them with the long line of people that would be eager to work for half what they earn today.
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