Ranting Against Folks Who Have No Clue What Private Sector Workers Have Experienced the Past Year.
So the brilliant union workers of the transit agency which provides my primary means of transport to downtown San Francisco have threatened to strike – if they are unable to come to a satisfactory contract arrangement with management in the next day or so. While the contract expires at midnight tonight, they have said that they will provide sufficient notice before striking.
Naturally, the spokesman for said union stated that they had not yet defined what “sufficient notice” was on the late evening newscast.
While I would be the first to admit that the management of said transit agency does not necessarily consist of the brightest of public agency workers, the unions that make up the majority of the workforce don’t seem to understand that most private sector workers have:
1) Taken pay cuts ranging from 5 to 10 percent.
2) Or have been subject to workforce reductions.
3) Or have been subject to both.
In the meantime, these transit workers are focused on fighting the transit agency’s request to maintain current wages to help close a $100 million shortfall, and give up this year’s guaranteed 3.75% pay increase.
And lest I forget, as of July 1 said transit agency increased fares.
Suffice to say, there is very little public support in these parts for said workers. I hope that:
1) There is no strike.
2) If there is a strike, that there will be no animosity.
Specifically, that I would act with no animosity towards said workers.
It will be quite difficult.
On the news, a BART union rep said sufficient notice was at least an hour.
The BART workers got something like a 26% raise over the last four years, and now they want more.
As is typical with people who make their living suckling at the public’s bosom, it’s very, very easy to spend other people’s money, isn’t it?
Cheers.
Screw ‘em… take a car! Global Warming is a myth anyway and… glub, glub, glub… where’d all this water come from?!
I think every unemployed worker in the San Francisco area should be lining up outside the agency’s HQ ready to take jobs as replacement workers.
not that i am siding with the strike option… i don’t want to see it either, i rely on BART also… but, i would not take all of what the news is reporting about the issue without a BIG grain of sand.
1. as i understand it, BART’s spokesperson (who represents BART management) is formerly a member of the media, and BART ’s board of directors has one member of the Chronicle ownership family on it. therefore, i think it is fair to assume that BART management has an upper hand with the media.
2. my understanding from a friend, who is a station agent, is that they have not received more than 3% raise over the last 5 years (granted, he could have lied to me), but i know they wouldn’t have been the only civil servant agency that either did not get raises (that have kept up with inflation) or have given back raises during the economic boom that saw private sector raises.
3. the contract negotiations began before BART’s decision to raise rates (for whatever this is worth).
again, i’m not advocating for a BART strike, and i am sure that BART workers’ woes are not as bad as i’ve been told, but i am sure that the media is not giving us the full story this time, unfortunately.
Here’s a link to an editorial that says BART workers received a 23% pay increase over 4 years, while another said they received a 22% pay increase over 4 years. I have to admit that I’ve also seen things that said they received no pay increase over the last 4 years, although those tended to be pro-union, pro-BART worker sites. I guess you get to pick who you believe.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_12741966
http://www.berkeleydaily.org/issue/2005-05-20/article/21432?headline=BART-Workers-Protest-Cuts-By-MATTHEW-ARTZ
Now I’m noticing that the 20%+ raises were for the period between 2002-2006, so I think my claim about salary increases for the last 4 years was wrong. I can’t find any clear info on what BART salary increases were in the last 4 years.
J, thanks for coming by and sharing your thoughts. I can understand your perspective about the possibility of BART having an “edge” in the media, but regardless of whether internal politics are at play in the spin game, the fact remains that every 4 years we’re subject to this game wherein Bay Area public transit is potentially held hostage to this battle between the union and management. I’m not an advocate for BART management by any means, but we’re in a completely different economic climate, unlike any most of us have seen in our lifetimes thus far.
Bottom line: regardless of what the issues are, a strike by the BART unions would NOT go over well in the public sphere, not at a time when private sector employees have been losing jobs and taking pay cuts. I would think there are several thousand of the unemployed who would love to work for BART should those unions strike…which now does seem unlikely, given the call for a 60 day cooling off period should they not reach an agreement this week.
Either way, the unions are currently on the losing end of the media game…
i agree that a strike by BART unions would not go over well. it would be the worst thing for them, they will not get any sympathy from the public, especially in this economic climate.
i do worry that the media, as usual, is not giving us the fair and complete picture, and that is more of a crime than BART employees holding us hostage every four years.
Hey Andy — totally unrelated to your post, but… Have you heard of Donald Miller’s new book? “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years“. Sounds really good!
~MizB