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BART management met with union leaders again Monday to try to reach an agreement before the union employees’ contract expires at midnight Sunday, a management spokesman said.
Transit district spokesman Rick Rice said management met with leaders of Service Employees International Union Local 1021, which
represents 1,430 mechanics, custodians and clerical workers, this morning and with leaders of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555, which represents 945 station agents, train operators and clerical workers, this afternoon.
The talks are being facilitated by two state mediators who sometimes meet with the parties separately and other times meet with all of them together in the same room.
SEIU Local 1021 executive director Pete Castelli said negotiations have been ongoing but have been proceeding more slowly than they should because BART’s lead negotiator, Thomas Hock, has been on vacation for the past 10 days.
Castelli said that means the parties have only been able to talk about small supplemental issues during that time instead of the bigger sticking points, which he said are wages, benefits and worker safety.
But Rice said Hock’s vacation was approved by the state mediator back on July 7 and that the parties have still been able to talk about
important matters in his absence.
“There have been more meetings than originally scheduled and there’s still plenty of time to reach an agreement,” Rice said.
Hock will be back at the bargaining table on Tuesday, and the mediators’ schedule includes talks every day until the contract expires on
Sunday night, he said.
Castelli said, “We will have hope that an agreement can be reached but we don’t have high hopes.”
He said that is because union leaders believe BART management hired Hock to be their lead negotiator so that he could force workers to go on strike and eventually “cave in” and accept an unfavorable contract.
Rice denied Castelli’s allegation, saying, “BART is absolutely trying to reach an agreement and believe a deal can still be reached that keeps the trains running.”
BART employees went on strike the morning of July 1 but late on July 4 they agreed to extend their previous contract for 30 days, until Aug. 4. They returned to work the afternoon of July 5.
The four-and-a-half day strike clogged local highways and caused commute headaches for Bay Area residents.
Transit officials fear that the commuting nightmare could be repeated next Monday if BART doesn’t reach an agreement with its employees by
Sunday night.
Be prepared to be held hostage by an overpaid, greedy union gang that should be fired if they choose to negatively impact our fragile Bay Area economy just because they can. Fighting for rights and decent wages is one thing, but when your the highest paid group of workers of this kind then you lose the support and sympathy of the community.
I highly suspect the BART employees are significantly OVERPAID for what they do, especially for the menial tasks (like cleaning/janitorial) and “driver” tasks.
Considering that they are “union” employees, they are probably all overpaid (relative to the same job duties in the general workforce).
Show us a LIST of the job titles, salaries & benefits, job duties, and experience/training/education requirements to get that job.
Show us some justification for paying these people this highly.
Any STRIKE is not against BART, it is against the general public (it is the customers wallet who will pay for an increases). How do we STRIKE back against these union employees to let them know how we feel about PAYING MORE for them to do their basic job.
We’re not talking about “innovation, creativity, ingenuity, excellent and competitive customer service” here. I don’t see employees making vast improvements in the customer experience on a daily and monthly basis.
We’re talking about basic skills–tightening a bolt, cleaning a toilet, reporting a ticket machine outage, checking a line, answering a question.
We’re not talking about high education requirements and intense brain power to solve some unique problem.
We’re talking about routine, show up and do your time job without much take-it-home stress.
These employees are OVERPAID already………and UNGRATEFUL………..and UNFRIENDLY…….and UNCARING. Most of the general public are just too nice to tell them that to their face.
What I’d like to know is why BART’s lead negotiator’s vacation was approved on July 7 knowing full well that the cooling off period was less than a month away. These jokers – all of them on both sides – should be sitting down and hammering through these issues day in and day out until an agreement is reached. A juror is not granted vacation in the middle of deliberations. Can someone please explain this to me?
Terminate all of them and start fresh…And when I say all of them I mean all of them from TOP to BOTTOM…
Put out the notice “Help Wanted Etc. Etc.” You will have a line 2 miles long.
The BART new union contract must state NO STRIKES Allowed.
You should know the rest of the drill.
Our president did it with Air Traffic Controllers…A much more important group of employees…They got the work and all is well.
Thanks for Listening, Julia Pardini from Alamo
PS…If BART gives in the Governor should terminate all the Management folks
Thanks for your comments Julia !
Reagan did the termination of the air traffic controllers. I was an ex government employee (military) and did not have the option to strike !!! No strikes allowed!! And we fund these folks with our tax dollars? May they rot in strike hell…………..