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[EleventhDoctor]

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/06/20/bart-labor-negotiations-become-increasingly-contentious/

OAKLAND (KCBS)— Bay Area Rapid Transit workers placed leaflets at stations around the Bay Area Thursday morning as their contract talks with management has become increasingly contentious.

The unions and the transit agency have 10 days before contracts with five unions are set to expire. More than 2,500 unionized workers could walk out on July 1st.

Service Employees International Union Local 1021 – which represents 1,430 mechanics, custodians and clerical workers - and Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555 – which represents 945 train operators, station agents and foreworkers - will hold strike authorization votes on Tuesday.

SEIU Local 1021 spokeswoman Leah Berlanga said the unions have to give management 72 hours’ notice before going on strike, and that workers still hope a strike can be averted.

Gaileen Gaines, who keeps BART stations clean as a maintenance worker spoke at West Oakland station.

“We’re just hoping that management will come around and understand that what we’re asking for is just fair. We want the protection here at the stations. It’s not much that we’re asking for,” she said.

One of the issues at the forefront of these talks is workplace safety. The Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1021 said that over the past three years 100 BART employees were physically attacked and that management isn’t doing enough to protect them.

However, BART spokeswoman Alicia Trost said the agency is serious about safety.

“We just put in hundreds of new security cameras in and around our system and hundreds more are coming. That also includes real-time cameras on our trains,” said Trost.

Trost said lighting and other safety concerns are being addressed by management and that those issues “don’t belong at the bargaining table.”

Trost said such concerns aren’t even being mentioned in the unions’ own internal communications about the labor talks, which she said instead emphasize salaries, work rules and benefits.

Efforts to ink a contract deal are on after the ATU walked away from talks on Tuesday.

I also read that MUNI might strike as well.

 

[ezekial45]

Oh fuck. I hate driving into the city.

 

[dakkumauji]

MUNI striking would be hell.

 

[EleventhDoctor]

MUNI striking would be hell.

MUNI and BART striking simultaneously would be hell.

 

[butzopower]

Time to put air back into my bike tires.

 

[SlipperySlope]

This is one of the things I hate most about unions. They're holding the people of the Bay Area hostage for their own selfish greed.

Unions and strikes should be illegal.

 

[entremet]

I remember when the MTA in NYC went on strike. It was absolute hell and it crippled the city.

 

[Starviper]

This is one of the things I hate most about unions. They're holding the people of the Bay Area hostage for their own selfish greed.

Unions and strikes should be illegal.

If it wasn't for unions dealing with management on the workers behalf many workers could be underpaid and would receive minimal compensation and benefits. It's much easier to have high level talks for everyone involved rather than individuals dealing with management on their own.

 

[Rapscallion]

My god, no! Give them what they want! My children? Take em all!

 

[SlipperySlope]

If it wasn't for unions dealing with management on the workers behalf many workers could be underpaid and would receive minimal compensation and benefits. It's much easier to have high level talks for everyone involved rather than individuals dealing with management on their own.

On the contrary, unionized workers are typically overpaid and inefficient considering the work they do. Many unionized workers work for the government, so the money is coming straight from you. They like holding people and management hostage to get what they want. They're going to cripple a whole city... much like they've done before...

How can anyone defend this?

 

[Cyan]

On the contrary, unionized workers are typically overpaid and inefficient considering the work they do. Many unionized workers work for the government, so the money is coming straight from you. They like holding people and management hostage to get what they want. They're going to cripple a whole city... much like they've done before...

How can anyone defend this?

On the other hand, I am rather fond of weekends and the 40-hour work week.

 

[SlipperySlope]

On the other hand, I am rather fond of weekends and the 40-hour work week.

They may have had a purpose in the past. That all changed when they were granted too much power.

Holding a city hostage for your own selfish gain is Bond-villain level greed.

 

[entremet]

They may have had a purpose in the past. That all changed when they were granted too much power.

Holding a city hostage for your own selfish gain is Bond-villain level greed.

Aren't public sector strikes illegal? They are in New York.

 

[ReturnOfTheRAT]

Looks like it will be after Monday and Tuesday. I'm not paying $32 a day to park in San Francisco.

 

[OrlanisWorks]

That's gonna be a nightmare for hundreds, maybe thousands of people. Who is at fault for this, really?


Workers being attacked, they think video cameras will stop that?

 

[RuGalz]

Aren't a lot of these people overpaid already?... Not sure what to do about enhancing security though.

 

[Auron_Kale]

This is going to suck if this happens...

I might ask my cousin if I can stay over at her place if the strike happens.

 

[EleventhDoctor]

Aren't a lot of these people overpaid already?... Not sure what to do about enhancing security though.

They are INCREDIBLY overpaid. Speaking of which:

BART's top-paid worker of 2012 never worked a day

With a gross salary of more than $333,000, BART's highest-paid employee last year wasn't its general manager, police chief or a worker who racked up gobs of overtime scrubbing grime from filthy train seats.
It was someone who did no work at all for BART in 2012: Dorothy Dugger, the agency's former general manager who resigned under pressure more than two years ago.
Under a lucrative retirement scheme, Dugger, 57, quietly stayed on the books, burning off nearly 80 weeks of unused vacation time, drawing paychecks and full benefits for more than 19 months after she agreed to quit in May 2011, according to an analysis by this newspaper. By remaining on BART's payroll, she accrued almost two extra months of


vacation, while sitting at home drawing a six-figure salary for unused time off.
The months of extra pay were on top of the $920,000 that BART paid Dugger to leave after the agency's board botched an effort to fire her by violating public meetings laws.
"Wow," said James Fang, a BART board member who tried to oust Dugger. "She was still on the payroll? I did not know this. It's startling."
In 2012 alone Dugger's gross pay could have bought 52,837 round-trip BART tickets between downtown Oakland and San Francisco's Financial district. She even received more pay than the person who replaced her to run the Bay Area commuter railroad, General Manager Grace Crunican, who took home $316,000.
Without leaving her home in
Advertisement

Oakland's Crocker Highlands neighborhood, Dugger reaped the astonishing windfall by cashing in more than 3,100 vacation hours, saved during her 20 years with BART.
Many cash-strapped public agencies are now under scrutiny for allowing departing employees to convert huge banks of unused vacation and sick time into big cash payouts, but a little-known policy in BART's rules for senior managers like Dugger made her perk even sweeter.
Because she was allowed to drag out her vacation-bank payments for months, Dugger received $138,000 worth of benefits, including pension contributions and medical insurance -- perks she would not have received if she had taken her vacation payments in a lump-sum check. Since she remained on BART's payroll, Dugger also received an additional $98,000 in cash, because she was still racking up vacation time and management bonuses -- even though she had no one to manage.
That alone was more than the 2012 gross pay of almost three-quarters of BART's 3,340 workers, the agency's compensation data shows.
Remaining on BART's payroll also added both time and money to the calculations on which Dugger's retirement is based -- increasing her pension payments by more than $1,000 a month for life. When her time on BART's books finally ran out in December, she began to draw a pension of $181,000 a year.
Reached this week by phone, Dugger said she was entitled to the money because she earned the time off.
She said her decision to spread out her unused vacation payments after her four-year tenure as general manager ended in May 2011 "best suited my needs. I made that decision some time ago. I don't remember every factor."
BART's vacation policy requires senior managers to decide every year whether they want to save unused time off for a retirement bonus. They must place the time in an account that can only be cashed out at the end of a career.
Not taking a lump sum on top of her $920,000 settlement eased Dugger's tax burden, as well.
But news of her bounty wasn't easy for BART riders to stomach.
"I hope it becomes a big stink," said BART patron Mitch Roland, of Alameda. "This is an agency funded by taxpayers. ... They should have stricter controls."
Crunican, the new general manager, didn't respond to several messages left with her spokeswoman last week. BART board President Tom Radulovich, of San Francisco, did not return several phone calls.
BART board member Robert Raburn, of Oakland, said Dugger's payout shows a serious problem in how the agency deals with unused time off.
"We should be able to control it," he said of time accruals. "It should be use it or lose it."
Another board member had concerns.
"We have to look at this," Fang said. "We never think about these very critical and important little things."
BART is widely known for offering some of the most lucrative government benefits and sweeteners in California. Employees contribute nothing to pension costs, the agency provides rare deferred compensation accounts as an extra retirement fund and most employees contribute only $92 a month to medical insurance costs no matter how many dependents they have on a policy.
But Dugger appears to have especially benefited. The value of the time off she stored up before becoming general manager skyrocketed when she ascended to the top job in 2007 and received a raise of nearly $100,000 a year, records show. She was paid for all 3,100 hours of unused time off at her final, highest pay rate, she said, not her rate when the time was accrued.
"It was time (off) I earned my whole career at BART," she said. "It's a cost of having the option" to save the vacation until the end of a career, she said.
When asked if she thought that was fair to BART riders, she said: "That's a fair issue to debate."
Raburn was one the directors who voted to fire Dugger in early 2011 after mounting complaints about service and cleanliness of the aging transit system and criticism that she failed to provide strong leadership after the 2009 fatal shooting of a handcuffed African-American man, Oscar Grant III, by a BART police officer.
But the directors were forced to quickly rescind that decision after discovering they had not followed public notice requirements to schedule the closed-door meeting to vote on Dugger's ouster. Dugger threatened to sue, and the board agreed to pay her $920,000, plus $14,000 in legal costs, to drop the threat and resign.
"We had to buy her out, I don't know what else we can say. It could have been much worse if she had gone to court," Raburn said.
But lost in that was any discussion of how to deal with all of Dugger's vacation time. "I can't talk about what we discussed," Raburn said.
Dugger said she was proud of her time with BART. Asked if her lucrative use of vacation time exposed a fiscal flaw in the agency, she said, "I think BART's track record on fiscal management is quite solid."

 

[Blearth]

For the love of God just give them whatever they want.

 

[EleventhDoctor]

Here's average BART Salaries:

http://bartmusings.blogspot.com/2009/07/how-much-do-they-make.html

BART Police Officer: $135,464 including overtime

Train Operator: $120,122 including overtime

Customer Service: $110,958 including overtime

Elevator Worker: $110,275 including overtime

Cash Handling Foreworker: $108,629 including overtime

Facility Maintenance Supervisor: 107,617 including overtime

 

[shira]

Walk to work! Lose some weight 'merica.

In my day I had to walk 40 miles to school in teh snow barefoot etc etc.

 

[Natetan]

Here's average BART Salaries:

http://bartmusings.blogspot.com/2009...they-make.html

BART Police Officer: $135,464 including overtime

Train Operator: $120,122 including overtime

Customer Service: $110,958 including overtime

Elevator Worker: $110,275 including overtime

Cash Handling Foreworker: $108,629 including overtime

Facility Maintenance Supervisor: 107,617 including overtime

That is ridiculous.

 

[stufte]

Walk to work! Lose some weight 'merica.

In my day I had to walk 40 miles to school in teh snow barefoot etc etc.

I used to walk several miles a day just to get back and forth to a BART station for work. BART employees make too much money already for the work they do, so I see this as just another shitty excuse to get another unwarranted pay raise.

 

[SlipperySlope]

Here's average BART Salaries:

http://bartmusings.blogspot.com/2009/07/how-much-do-they-make.html

BART Police Officer: $135,464 including overtime

Train Operator: $120,122 including overtime

Customer Service: $110,958 including overtime

Elevator Worker: $110,275 including overtime

Cash Handling Foreworker: $108,629 including overtime

Facility Maintenance Supervisor: 107,617 including overtime

Amazing. San Fransiscan's tax dollars at work :/

I'd be upset if I lived there. Why don't you guys do something about this?

But anyway, this is the government and unions at work. And people wonder why I support small government...

 

[SpectreFire]

Here's average BART Salaries:

http://bartmusings.blogspot.com/2009/07/how-much-do-they-make.html
Customer Service: $110,958 including overtime

Elevator Worker: $110,275 including overtime

What the fuck.

Where do I sign up?

 

[Cyan]

Here's average BART Salaries:

http://bartmusings.blogspot.com/2009/07/how-much-do-they-make.html

BART Police Officer: $135,464 including overtime

Train Operator: $120,122 including overtime

Customer Service: $110,958 including overtime

Elevator Worker: $110,275 including overtime

Cash Handling Foreworker: $108,629 including overtime

Facility Maintenance Supervisor: 107,617 including overtime

Wow. Do we know what the salaries are for comparable private-sector jobs? Ideally also in CA for better comparability.

Edit: Hmm. This includes OT, and possibly pension contributions, medical, etc. I imagine most of us are reading these numbers and comparing them to our base salaries. I'd be interested to know the average base salary for these employees.

 

[EleventhDoctor]

Amazing. San Fransiscan's tax dollars at work :/

I'd be upset if I lived there. Why don't you guys do something about this?

But anyway, this is the government and unions at work. And people wonder why I support small government...

If you really want to look at something that will make your blood boil-look at that story I posed a little bit further up about the woman who manipulated the system and made over 300,000 not working a day in the year. And meanwhile the train cars are packed over capacity with no air conditioning every single day. They claim they have no money for new trains.

 

[Vesmir]

Here's average BART Salaries:

http://bartmusings.blogspot.com/2009/07/how-much-do-they-make.html

BART Police Officer: $135,464 including overtime

Train Operator: $120,122 including overtime

Customer Service: $110,958 including overtime

Elevator Worker: $110,275 including overtime

Cash Handling Foreworker: $108,629 including overtime

Facility Maintenance Supervisor: 107,617 including overtime

Either my uncle is holding back or this is not averaged out, because he's 8 years in as Customer Service and earns half that salary. Looking at the source on that page, it seems like that income is only for some people. The BART brochure for train operators says that you start at 23/hr. Far cry from 120k/year.

I don't doubt that some people exploit the system, but everyone making bank?

 

[SlipperySlope]

Wow. Do we know what the salaries are for comparable private-sector jobs? Ideally also in CA for better comparability.

Edit: Hmm. This includes OT, and possibly pension contributions, medical, etc. I imagine most of us are reading these numbers and comparing them to our base salaries. I'd be interested to know the average base salary for these employees.

OT and benefits doesn't really explain why the numbers are about 4 times higher than a normal base salary for those positions.

Plus OT hourly wage jumps in California is capped. After a certain wage, I forget what it is (think it's below 90K), you no longer are required to earn more than your base hourly wage for OT. For example, if my base salary is 100K and working hourly, I'd be making Hr * 1 for OT, not Hr * 1.5 or any of that.

Although it's by the employer's discretion. They can pay you more if you like. And given that it's the government and unionized, I wouldn't be surprised if there's no cap for OT. My dad has no OT cap, he's a building construction inspector, working under a union. He's pulled in 120K for a few years before the economy took a dump.

 

[Lambtron]

Welp, I'm going to be out there two weeks from Sunday. I sure hope this is resolved by then because I don't want to rent a fucking car.

 

[ItAintEasy]

Sometimes I am very glad I don't rely on public transportation. Other times I really wish I had a better system in the city that I live in because I would use it rather than using my car.

 

[Cyan]

OT and benefits doesn't really explain why the numbers are about 4 times higher than a normal base salary for those positions.

Well, that's sort of what I'd like to know. How much higher is the actual base salary than is standard? Because those numbers look really high to me, but I'm also not familiar with standard compensation scales in this sort of profession, and if additional benefits (especially pension fundings) are included that could really skew things.

 

[Open Source]

And then they yell at you for hurting the environment by driving a car when you have all this great public transportation.

 

[SlipperySlope]

Well, that's sort of what I'd like to know. How much higher is the actual base salary than is standard? Because those numbers look really high to me, but I'm also not familiar with standard compensation scales in this sort of profession, and if additional benefits (especially pension fundings) are included that could really skew things.

I used to run a business, and if I recall, I used to have to budget about 25% of an employee's salary typically for things like benefits and taxes. Things can get skewed if they get a bonus (I didn't give bonuses).

For two of those positions, Customer Service and the money clerks, I think can earn about 40-50K base salary in Orange County, CA. Dunno about the others.

 

[XiaNaphryz]

Plus OT hourly wage jumps in California is capped. After a certain wage, I forget what it is (think it's below 90K), you no longer are required to earn more than your base hourly wage for OT. For example, if my base salary is 100K and working hourly, I'd be making Hr * 1 for OT, not Hr * 1.5 or any of that.

Do you have a source for that? This is the first time I've ever heard of any sort of cap like that. I've also seen ridiculous gross wage numbers reported here in California due to overtime, particularly in the nursing field.

 

[Snake]

Proof that unions get paid too much: look how much the government is paying management!

Here's average BART Salaries:

http://bartmusings.blogspot.com/2009/07/how-much-do-they-make.html

BART Police Officer: $135,464 including overtime

Train Operator: $120,122 including overtime

Customer Service: $110,958 including overtime

Elevator Worker: $110,275 including overtime

Cash Handling Foreworker: $108,629 including overtime

Facility Maintenance Supervisor: 107,617 including overtime

Feel free to read the source for those numbers. First and foremost those aren't the averages, and the blog never claims they are (though it probably wants you to think that). They are the people at the upper end, and the numbers reflect Total Cost of Employment, not their base pay.

A cursory glance at the BART employees shows that most of the low level people are making 20-50k before overtime. The mid-level engineers/electricians are making 70k. The police are making a bit more, which is the biggest outlier to me. Then the high-level people are easily making six figures without OT, but they aren't the ones who are striking are they?

But anyway, this is the government and unions at work. And people wonder why I support small government...

Our lack of sympathy for your positions might have something to do with your small government policies enabling and empowering massive corporate entities to get away with far more egregious waste and corruption, including at the expense of public resources.

 

[SlipperySlope]

Do you have a source for that? This is the first time I've ever heard of any sort of cap like that. I've also seen ridiculous gross wage numbers reported here in California due to overtime, particularly in the nursing field.

Oh, sorry, it's not as broad as I thought:

http://www.management-advantage.com/products/overtime-exempt.html

Lots of rules regarding Exempt status...

 

[xbhaskarx]

Here's average BART Salaries:

http://bartmusings.blogspot.com/2009/07/how-much-do-they-make.html

BART Police Officer: $135,464 including overtime

Train Operator: $120,122 including overtime

Customer Service: $110,958 including overtime

Elevator Worker: $110,275 including overtime

Cash Handling Foreworker: $108,629 including overtime

Facility Maintenance Supervisor: 107,617 including overtime

Wow.

 

[Vilam]

I can't wait for the glorious public transportation utopia of the future. Down with cars!

 

[JCizzle]

I used to run a business, and if I recall, I used to have to budget about 25% of an employee's salary typically for things like benefits and taxes. Things can get skewed if they get a bonus (I didn't give bonuses).

For two of those positions, Customer Service and the money clerks, I think can earn about 40-50K base salary in Orange County, CA. Dunno about the others.

No Christmas bonus? Nice.

 

[Cornballer]

- SFGate: BART workers vote to authorize a strike

Members of BART's two largest unions voted overwhelmingly to give their leaders the power to call a strike as early as Monday, officials announced Wednesday morning.

The unions - Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555 and Service Employees International Union Local 1021 - held separate strike authorization votes throughout the day and into the night on Tuesday.

SEIU members, who include mechanics, maintenance workers and a variety of BART professionals, voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike, with 98.5 percent of its voting members approving the move, while 99.9 percent of ATU workers - train operators and station agents - approved a strike vote.

Granting strike authorization does not mean a work stoppage will happen but it gives union leaders approval to order a walkout. The last BART strike took place in 1997, when the system's weekday ridership was 275,000, and lasted six days.

With BART now hauling about 400,000 a day, a strike would almost certainly deliver gridlock to the Bay Area. However, it would have less of an impact during the Fourth of July holiday week when fewer people are commuting to work or school.

Union leaders have not announced when a strike would take place. Typically, BART's unions have given the public 72-hour notice when they've threatened to strike, though a warning is not required.

Bay Area transportation officials are making plans to boost alternative transit and to encourage carpooling if a strike occurs. Bay Area carpool lanes would operate continuously from 5 a.m.-7 p.m. AC Transit would operate shuttles between downtown Oakland and San Francisco and San Francisco Bay Ferries would run extra boats on the Oakland, Alameda, Alameda Harbor Bay and Vallejo ferries to and from San Francisco.

Negotiations between BART and the two large unions are expected to resume on Wednesday. The unions are asking for raises that add up to about 23.2 percent over three years. They're also demanding the transit agency take steps to improve safety on the job. BART has offered 1 percent raises, contingent on the agency meeting economic goals, in each year of the four-year contract it's proposed. The agency has said it needs employees to pick up a share of their pension contributions, to increase their health insurance costs and to approve rule changes that would reduce overtime.

BART has 2,841 of its employees in five labor unions that bargain some issues separately but economic issues, including wages and benefits, jointly. SEIU represents 1,430 workers, and 945 are represented by ATU. The American Federation of State and Municipal Employees represents 210 employees, mainly supervisors and midlevel managers. Two police unions, one for rank-and-file officers and one for sergeants and lieutenants, cover 256 people, but are prohibited from striking. BART has 411 nonunion employees.

AFSCME workers are bargaining in a more collaborative process but have said they will honor picket lines if the two larger unions walk off the job.

 

[Guevara]

Gonna be a fun week. I don't take BART to work, but half my office does.

 

[Liberty4all]

This is one of the things I hate most about unions. They're holding the people of the Bay Area hostage for their own selfish greed.

Unions and strikes should be illegal.

I'm in a union. In my industry union jobs are paid properly non union jobs are not.

 

[EleventhDoctor]

Thankfully I can work from home-but the entire thing irritates me.

 

[Guevara]

You can thank unions for a 5 day work-week. Among many many other things.

 

[killertofu]

I can't wait for my ex to have to walk to work.

 

[Liberty4all]

Here's average BART Salaries:

http://bartmusings.blogspot.com/2009/07/how-much-do-they-make.html

BART Police Officer: $135,464 including overtime

Train Operator: $120,122 including overtime

Customer Service: $110,958 including overtime

Elevator Worker: $110,275 including overtime

Cash Handling Foreworker: $108,629 including overtime

Facility Maintenance Supervisor: 107,617 including overtime

isn't san Francisco one of the most expensive cities in NA to live in?

 

[DUFFMCWALIN]

isn't san Francisco one of the most expensive cities in NA to live in?

Yup

 

[jamesinclair]

Amazing. San Fransiscan's tax dollars at work :/

I'd be upset if I lived there. Why don't you guys do something about this?

But anyway, this is the government and unions at work. And people wonder why I support small government...

Except under your small government fantasy scenarios, there'd be no public transit.

Then what?

 

[You Are Viewtiful]

This is one of the things I hate most about unions. They're holding the people of the Bay Area hostage for their own selfish greed.

Unions and strikes should be illegal.

If it goes as far as a strike, 90% of the time it's management's fault. There was a transit strike for 3 months where I live and I was angry at the operators at first too, but then it was revealed that the contractors hadn't had a discussion with the union in over 2 months. Thankfully the government fired the contractors and everything was back to normal.

If it goes as far as a strike it usually means one party isn't willing to cooperate.