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Apparently we're eight days away from the end of BART workers' current contract, and therefore eight days away from a possible BART strike due to the aggressive negotiations necessary in the face of BART's (and everyone else's) fiscal crisis. In this charming, arguably anti-labor report from KRON4, we learn that it takes 2 people to replace a cushion on a BART train, and some BART employees make more in overtime than they do in regular salary. "So this is in the midst of rising fares, rising parking fees, they're $250 million in the hole -- how can this be happening?!" asks the appalled anchorwoman.
The workers' union blames bad management, saying that "high executive salaries and bonuses, and tens of thousands of dollars of expenditures on catering, promotional items, labor consultants [and] clothing" are responsible for the current crisis.
The last BART strike was in 1997 when 85,000 fewer people were riding the trains. Should a strike occur, expect major messes on the bridges, broken Muni trains, packed buses and plenty of local news outrage. Also, expect that we won't be seeing 24-hour BART service in our lifetimes.
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If being late and unreliable has become BART's trademark, a strike seems like a great way to celebrate that attitude.
Let 'em strike and fire the whole lot. We have 11.5% unemployment in this state, and we'll find people who will be much more grateful to be employed at all.
Management should propose a 10% pay cut across the board - for both management and staff. Call the union's bluff.
California public sector workers have enjoyed a 15 year bonanza of generous compensation packages - the base salary of your average California public sector worker is quite competitive with private sector at this point, especially when you add in the health/dental/etc. benefits, vacation time, pension, etc.
Its not supposed to be that way. When I was growing up, working for the state/city meant generally crappy pay and a pension you had to work for the city FOREVER at in order to vest. This was the tradeoff for working a job that was pretty easy, with 9-5 hours, and that was impossible to get fired from.
True on that last part.
Guess I'm going to have to bicycle across the bridge. Shouldn't be too hard with traffic at a complete standstill.
(For the humor impaired: the above is a joke)
well, Skibu - at least when the new bridge gets built(2013...2014... 20-whenever), you can make it from Oak to Treasure Island.....
for some reason, there's going to be a bike/pedestrian path along the new bridge(whenever its completed) but only to Treasure Island. i guess the rest of the way, you can just weave your way thru traffic :D
Let's see if I can veer this even more off topic. If I take a few words of what you said...Treasure Island...Oh...Pirates...Somalia....rogue nation...Iran....What the fuck is Obama doing? There you go.
BART workers need to stop whining. They make a decent amount and they know it.
I like the across the board 10% pay cut idea, but I say go one better. Make the pay cut 10% of income over say, 30,000. This means that the highest paid people will take more of a cut, and the bottom paid people will take a smaller one. This is equitable as the people who can most afford a pay cut will shoulder more of the burden.
Yeah, $30,000 is a"high paid" wage for the Bay Area
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Guys, if the above article and video were all true, then yes, there would be no excuse for any Bart worker. But i'd like to point out a couple of points: 1. Overtime. The reason the overtime dollars are so high, is becaues Bart refuses to properly staff all area of the district, hence, vacant positions means someone has to cover. What Lying Linton failed to mention, is that the District is actually saving money by paying the overtime. The employee already works for Bart, they are already getting benefits and wages, whereas if Bart properly staffed all departments, the expense would be over double. 2. The Bart worker has gotten more efficient over the years, check out the graphs on seiubart.org under "BART Worker Efficiency" on page 2 of the web site. You'll see that the Bart worker is doing quite a bit more, and there are fewer of them to do all the work. On the contrary, the total number of managers for the same time period, has increased.
We don't want to see a strike, we want to see things go un-interupted. But inbetween every contract, the District is patting us on the back for a job well done, but when contracts come around, we're "public enemy #1" buy the very people that we work for. What kind of a relationship is that?
Guys, if the above article and video were all true, then yes, there would be no excuse for any Bart worker. But i'd like to point out a couple of points: 1. Overtime. The reason the overtime dollars are so high, is becaues Bart refuses to properly staff all area of the district, hence, vacant positions means someone has to cover. What Lying Linton failed to mention, is that the District is actually saving money by paying the overtime. The employee already works for Bart, they are already getting benefits and wages, whereas if Bart properly staffed all departments, the expense would be over double. 2. The Bart worker has gotten more efficient over the years, check out the graphs on seiubart.org under "BART Worker Efficiency" on page 2 of the web site. You'll see that the Bart worker is doing quite a bit more, and there are fewer of them to do all the work. On the contrary, the total number of managers for the same time period, has increased.
We don't want to see a strike, we want to see things go un-interupted. But inbetween every contract, the District is patting us on the back for a job well done, but when contracts come around, we're "public enemy #1" buy the very people that we work for. What kind of a relationship is that?
you gotta love kron4's news segments - they make high school morning news look professional.