The Government Re-opens And Then The BART Shuts Down...

[Lord Jim]

The spoiled BART brats are at it again...I am so glad I no longer have to commute....

BART strike: No clear path to get trains running again

Now that BART workers are on strike, hundreds of thousands of frustrated commuters are asking: When will it end?

If Friday was any indication, not anytime soon.

The bargaining table was empty as negotiators finished the work week on an indefinite break that stretched on for more than 36 hours. It was not clear if talks would resume this weekend or when trains could start running again, though workers would have to signal the end of a strike by Sunday afternoon to get trains running by the Monday commute.

Politicians' calls for labor peace have gone unheeded. Top mediators failed to bridge the gap. An outpouring of complaints from commuters suffering through a 30 percent increase in freeway traffic and lengthy bus stop lines failed to sway either side.

"We're in the end game. The way out of this is: Who can take the strike longer" -- management or the unions? said Norm Brand, a San Francisco-based mediator who has helped with more than 3,000 labor disputes and other disagreements. "I think it's a pretty hard standoff."

Friday afternoon, unions called a news conference on the "possibility of the end of a strike," igniting hope. They announced workers could get trains running again soon -- but only if management would agree to a new "Rider First Plan" that was essentially the same pre-strike union offer that BART rejected.

There remained two big sticking points between BART and the two unions representing 2,300 blue-collar employees.

First, management was offering a 12 percent raise over four years, while unions were seeking a 15.9 percent pay increase. BART's average union worker currently makes $76,500 in gross salary.

Second, unions were looking to hold onto longtime "work rules" that have helped employees earn large overtime checks and keep control over their job hours. Management says the 470-page work rule book is full of freebies that cost BART a large amount of money, such as allowing train operators to run just two roundtrips during a daylong shift.

The most talked-about work rule change is BART's proposal to use technology to replace some administrative human jobs -- such as eliminating paper paycheck stubs -- but unions say it's a bigger issue.

"If it was about faxes and emails, we could resolve this in about 10 minutes," Chris Finn, a train operator and recording secretary for local Amalgamated Transit Union, said at a Friday afternoon rally in Oakland. "They want to implement whatever changes to our working conditions that they want at will."

But BART Director Zakhary Mallet said management should play "hardball with the union to see who blinks first."

"To me, that means not letting the strike dictate what happens at the bargaining table," Mallet said. "If we made a best, last and final offer, we should stick to that."

So, if both sides refuse to budge, can't somebody else force them to? It hasn't worked so far.

Gov. Jerry Brown used his one-time powers to issue a 60-day cooling-off period in August but has stayed out of the talks since.

Top state Democrats, including Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, have been working both sides, but to no avail. Some state legislators had floated an idea to ban BART strikes, but with the legislative session over for the year, that plan wouldn't restart trains.

George Cohen, director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, stepped in to help get NBA and NFL players to keep playing during labor disputes in recent years but said there was nothing more he could do to help BART talks. Previously, top state mediators appointed by Brown came up empty.

http://www.mercurynews.com/bart/ci_2434 ... ns-running

If it were up to me I'd PATCO their asses, but the politicos in Northern California don't have the balls for that...

It would take maybe a month, at the longest, to get a whole new crew of "train operators" up to speed...(they don't actually "drive" the trains...the system is completely automated, they just serve as a human back up in case the automated system fails; other than that all they do is announce the stops and open and close the doors...it requires a skill set similar to the folks who used operate elevators...)

And don't even get me started on the "station attendants"....

It would take maybe an afternoon to train a whole new crew...

How tough can it be to learn how to sit on you ass reading magazines and playing with your I-phone while occasionally pointing to the correct exits for tourists?

Orangutangs could be trained to do it...

(Actually that's not fair; the average orangutang would get bored and agitated by the lack of intellectual stimulation involved in being a BART "station attendant"; it takes a certain type to thrive with that level of langour...the same sort of folks who would find employment as a night time security guard at a high rise office building engaging...)

[Lord Jim]

Since it's a multi jurisdictional operation, I guess it would be Jerry Brown who would be the one in the position to shit can these pampered cry babies...

(If he even has the legal authority to do it; i have been unable to determine that one way or the other)

If he does have that authority, that's exactly what he ought to do...

Give these jokers 48 hours to return to work or they need not bother returning at all...

Enough would come back that along with managers working shifts, a skeletal service could be up and running within a couple of days, and with new hires and the limited amount of training involved, full service would be restored within a month...

And that would be the last time we had to deal with this garbage...

[Joe Guy]

After giving it some thought I have mixed feelings on the BART strike. I don't believe that they all have no skills and are overpaid. I don't believe that it is wrong for them to want to have pay increases and hold on to the benefits they have.

I don't believe that because a lot of people don't have some of the things that BART workers have, it means that they shouldn't have them. I'm quite sure that the pay they get has been exaggerated by the media, as in all of them making $80,000 per year. It's likely that anyone getting that pay level has been there for many years and/or has more responsibility than the average worker.

On the other hand, the shutdown sucks. It doesn't really seem like it will accomplish anything and it is the reason why so many people are on the side of management.

[Scooter]

Give these jokers 48 hours to return to work or they need not bother returning at all...

Enough would come back that along with managers working shifts, a skeletal service could be up and running within a couple of days, and with new hires and the limited amount of training involved, full service would be restored within a month...

And that would be the last time we had to deal with this garbage...

I realize the need to keep referencing Saint Ronald's "bravery" in ordering the air traffic controllers back to work, but there is a difference here in that this is not an illegal strike. I imagine there must be some way of legislating them back to work, but that would be something that would require, well, an act of the legislature, and could not happen solely by gubernatorial fiat.

And in future, yes, you could get them declared an essential service in order to prevent them from striking ever again, but that means submitting all future contract disputes to binding arbitration, and I would suggest you be careful what you wish for, because you might not be any happier with the result.

[Joe Guy]

It will be interesting to see if someone in management was driving the BART train that just killed two people.

[oldr_n_wsr]

The LIRR unions are talking about a strike.

[Jarlaxle]

Is it LEGAL for them to strike?!

This is why public employees should not be permitted to unionize.

[Gob]

The right to free association banned in the land of the free? The irony is strong in this one!

[Lord Jim]

Strop, there's a difference between a right to unionize, and bargain collectively, and a right to strike...

Police and fire fighters for example, are unionized, but it is illegal for them to strike. (Just as it was for the air traffic controllers)

[dales]

If you miss BART during the strike, this might make you miss it a bit less: A man accused of trying to make love to a train seat was acquitted of felony indecent exposure and released from San Francisco jail Monday.





Leslie Bailey, 28, was arrested May 8 shortly after a BART train operator saw him on on his knees in the nearly empty first car, thrusting his pelvis against a seat next to the cab.

Bailey, who boarded the Dublin-Pleasanton train at the 16th Street Station, exited at Civic Center but returned to his paramour just before the doors closed, according to the San Francisco public defender’s office. The operator testified that she then saw him gyrating on his stomach, his feet in the aisle, before he flipped over and began masturbating and smoking crack cocaine.

Bailey never acknowledged the operator while in the throes of passion, but noticed her once he exited at the Powell Street Station, the public defender’s office said. The operator testified that while Bailey apologized to her for smoking, his genitals were peeking out from beneath his shirt. BART police arrested him in the station and confiscated his crack cocaine pipe.

This isn’t the first time this sort of thing has happened on BART. In July, the amorous actions of a pair of passengers, posted online, aroused an official investigation.

Deputy Public Defender Emily Dahm, Bailey’s attorney, said the problem in this case was that her client had not been taking his anti-psychotic medication regularly. Plus, he was binging on crack cocaine.

She argued during the weeklong trial that Bailey, who is homeless, had been trying to have a private moment and not to attract public attention. To convict someone of felony indecent exposure, prosecutors must prove that the defendant was seeking attention.

According to court records, Bailey was convicted of felony indecent exposure in 2007 in San Francisco.

This time, the jury acquitted Bailey of one count of indecent exposure, deadlocked on a second count and convicted him of misdemeanor lewd acts. Prosecutors dismissed the remaining felony charge Monday.

Bailey was sentenced to time served and released. Public Defender Jeff Adachi said Bailey is now free to seek the mental health treatment he needs.

The district attorney’s office declined to comment.

It is unknown if the BART seat in question in this case was a newer, easier-to-clean model or an older cloth version.

[Guinevere]

Strop, there's a difference between a right to unionize, and bargain collectively, and a right to strike...

Police and fire fighters for example, are unionized, but it is illegal for them to strike. (Just as it was for the air traffic controllers)

Yup. In Massachusetts, there is a special commission set up specifically to deal with Labor/Management disputes for police and fire, because they cannot strike. I'd like to see that prohibition include public transit and schools, too, and then also give them a similar process as the public safety unions (which requires evaluation of the dispute, facilitated negotiations, and then ultimately binding arbitration if the disputes cannot then be resolved).

[Long Run]

Yes, the last Boston police strike didn't go so well for anyone involved.

I agree, there has to be another method for resolving labor differences for transit workers.

[Lord Jim]

I'd like to see that prohibition include public transit and schools, too, and then also give them a similar process as the public safety unions (which requires evaluation of the dispute, facilitated negotiations, and then ultimately binding arbitration if the disputes cannot then be resolved).

Makes sense to me...

[Guinevere]

Yes, the last Boston police strike didn't go so well for anyone involved.

Well before my time, Long Run, but I guess you remember it vividly.

[dgs49]

As has been proven countless times in the past, collective bargaining (with the right to strike) is disastrous in the public sector. It inevitably results in a "ratcheting up" of wages and benefits, coupled with ever-restrictive "work rules" that together create an elite cadre of under-stressed workers, with lifetime jobs and pensions far in excess of anything they could even hope for in the private sector, paid for by a hapless public with no recourse (except to move to Texas). BART has direct counterparts all over the country with names like SEPTA, MBTA, NYCTA, MARTA, PAT (here in Pittsburgh), and CTA. All are in fact bankrupt but haven't faced up to it yet. All will be bailed out by Gub'mint (which gets its money from the helpless taxpayers). And so it goes.

Further and more sinister, elected officials use the cornucopia of money and benefits to purchase the votes of the public (including mass transit) employees and, typically, everyone else in their households that votes. In most Democrat-controlled big cities, at least a quarter of the voting population is dependent on municipal paychecks - more than enough to determine the outcome of any election. Hence the lifetime-tenured Democrat mayors and city councils.

California has a huge population of government teat-suckers on various forms of "welfare," another population of working poor who don't pay enough in taxes to worry about it, wealthy persons who make enough not to care...and productive, middle-class people working in the private sector, who get their brains fucked out. Figuratively speaking, of course.

It's the price you pay for the good weather, I suppose.

Is it any wonder that middle-class white people are leaving the state in droves?

[Sue U]

The operator testified that she then saw him gyrating on his stomach, his feet in the aisle, before he flipped over and began masturbating and smoking crack cocaine.

Forget it, BART; no matter how hard you try, you'll never be the MTA. Also too and et cetera.

[dgs49]

So now we learn that they got a 15.3% raise (not 12%), to compensate them for the payment to the retirement fund and the few bucks they will have to pay for health insurance. In essence, they didn't have to pay a fucking dime, despite what the public was told.

The chief negotiator for BART was paid $399,000 to negotiate this deal.

Public sector unions.

Incredible.

[Andrew D]

... lifetime jobs and pensions far in excess of anything they could even hope for in the private sector ....

And what we should be asking ourselves is:

Why do we let private-sector employers ratfuck people who work for a living?

[dgs49]

Andrew, with all due respect to your intelligence and learning, what EXACTLY are you suggesting? That private sector employers should be required to provide guaranteed jobs, elaborate benefit packages, and early & generous retirement packages like public sector employers do?

Do elaborate. That would be interesting.

[oldr_n_wsr]

All are in fact bankrupt but haven't faced up to it yet. All will be bailed out by Gub'mint (which gets its money from the helpless taxpayers). And so it goes.

The MTA got the state to impose an MTA payroll tax ( 0.34 for every $100 of payroll) on all businesses (including public school districts) in their service area to help bail them out.