BART Strike Set for Sunday Night

both sides suck (0.00 / 0)

both sides suck. BART management spent a lot of money on a pricey consultant and decided to attack BART workers and go super anti union. That's fucked. But the union is smoking crack if they think BART can come up with the money to pay for all the goodies they want. Arnie and the Democrats eliminated Transit funding after cutting it for years ( gotta love all those Democrats who supported killing mass transit!!!) and there's no revenue to make up that huge gap.

so to both sides I've issued a general "Fuck YOU!" and they both suck.

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www.gregdewar.com

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by: gregdewar.com @ Fri Aug 14, 2009 at 17:15:45 PM UTC

Public Sympathies (0.00 / 0)

I can tell you, as a regular BART rider, that I've got absolutely no sympathies for the overpaid BART workers.  I've always been a union supporter, but with public employee unions negotiating grossly over-generous pay and retirement packages ($250K firefighter retirements anyone?) that I'm over the whole thing.  If it were possible I'd fire all 2300 BART workers, management included and privatize the whole thing I would  

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by: qopus @ Fri Aug 14, 2009 at 18:26:41 PM UTC

How DARE they want to earn a decent living (6.50 / 2)

I mean, the sheer gall of these people to try and hold the line against wage inequality in the midst of the worst recession in 60 years. Don't these BART workers know we expect them to shuttle our asses around the Bay Area for minimum wage?!

Seriously, this union bashing is just ridiculous. It is a truly ruinous economic policy to try and cram down wages. There's no surer way to guarantee this recession persists.

You can check out any time you like but you can never leave

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by: Robert Cruickshank @ Fri Aug 14, 2009 at 18:43:53 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Missing the point (0.00 / 0)

Robert, is there any union action you would think is a step too far?

My informal discussions with otherwise liberal pro-union folks in the Bay Area is running about 80% "fire them all" with a sprinkling of "a pox on both their houses".  

Wage inequality?  Snort.  BART station agents and train operators are some of the best paid workers in the country with their skillset and educational background, not to mention getting what still amounts to excellent benefits compared to most people in the downturn.  Now the ATU's threatened action has put their complaints and current benefit packages on the front page of every paper in the area, and I think a lot of people riding BART this morning (like me) were saying some not so nice things after seeing the package we are paying for with $4.25/leg.

Whining because they won't get their PPO totally paid for anymore and might need to drop back to Kaiser?  I know several laid off software engineers with Master's degrees that would kill to get KP coverage and a guaranteed pension right now.

I don't mind these employees making decent livings, but to think they can avoid giving up some of their gains when almost everybody in the public and private sectors have already is insanity.  The liberal Bay Area will be calling for a Taylor Law in California within a week.

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by: SFGeek @ Fri Aug 14, 2009 at 19:49:38 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Time (0.00 / 0)

As I understand it, the issue isn't so much the question of benefits. They are willing to grant a slew of concessions. However, they don't want to be stuck with a contract negotiated in the middle of this crappy environment. A 4 year contract would lock the workers into recession mode for years.

I think?

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by: Brian Leubitz @ Fri Aug 14, 2009 at 21:33:25 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Understandable, but... (0.00 / 0)

I can't imagine that BART will be in better shape in 2 years.  

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by: SFGeek @ Fri Aug 14, 2009 at 22:54:39 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

2 years (0.00 / 0)

Maybe, maybe not...  If it isn't, then they can negotiate a continuance.  If it is better, why then should they be locked into the cuts?

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by: CaliforniaCondor @ Sat Aug 15, 2009 at 16:43:17 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Then they are not pro-union folks (6.50 / 2)

Even in liberal circles, anti-union rhetoric has sunk in very, very, very deeply.

I suppose union-initiated violence, which is unusually rare, is something that would be a bridge too far. But what else?

You betray yourself when you say:

BART station agents and train operators are some of the best paid workers in the country with their skillset and educational background, not to mention getting what still amounts to excellent benefits compared to most people in the downturn.

There is no other way to read this than to say "those workers do not deserve to be well paid." You refer to "skill set and educational background" to claim that people who lack a college education (though many BART workers have one) do not deserve a decent middle-class income. You are saying that using unions to provide upward mobility is awful, objectionable, and illegitimate.

You also mention the downturn. Your argument is a lowest common denominator argument. Despite the fact that the #1 thing we need to provide lasting economic recovery is rising wages, you are saying we need to worsen the downturn by bringing everyone else down to the level of workers who are suffering. Whereas the New Deal was about bringing everyone up to a higher level, your Raw Deal is about downward adjustment. It is reckless and insane.

Anyone who thinks it is wrong for unions to go on strike to get improved benefits is inherently anti-union, because that is what unions are for.

You can check out any time you like but you can never leave

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by: Robert Cruickshank @ Fri Aug 14, 2009 at 21:40:26 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Who's going to support highly paid union workers striking? (0.00 / 0)

There's a difference between being well-paid and the absurd salaries and benefits that BART workers are getting. But I'm sure you knew that.

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by: stupiddimbulb @ Fri Aug 14, 2009 at 21:45:42 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Straw Man Much? (0.00 / 0)

There is no other way to read this than to say "those workers do not deserve to be well paid." You refer to "skill set and educational background" to claim that people who lack a college education (though many BART workers have one) do not deserve a decent middle-class income. You are saying that using unions to provide upward mobility is awful, objectionable, and illegitimate.

Actually, there is another way to read it, by looking at the letters I typed into the page, putting them together into words, and sounding those words out using a technique such as phonics.  You can then interpret those words using their plain meaning.  There is a thing called a dictionary that will help with that.

I refer to the skillset of these workers because the negotiating power of a union is not infinite; it is a function of a lot of variables, such as the size of the pool of labor qualified to replace the workers, the amount of support by the customers of the business and the public at large, the cost of replacing workers, etc...  

A big factor in how much personal risk individual workers are going to take is their own assessment of how likely it is that they can find an equivalent job if they end up being fired and banned from BART.  I don't think there are many $60K+health+pension jobs out there right now for fired station attendants and train operators, and if the BART board put out a full-page advertisement for these 600 jobs in the Chron on Sunday I have a feeling the line would stretch around their HQ on Harrison by 9am Monday.  

Apparently the ATU is betting that the training regime necessary to safely put operators in cars is enough of a barrier to prevent a mass firing.  I don't think that calculation will last more than a week or so of gridlock, and that if the BART board wants to break the ATU now will be their best opportunity for decades.

I don't think it's wrong for the union to strike.  I think it's stupid.

Anyone who thinks it is wrong for unions to go on strike to get improved benefits is inherently anti-union, because that is what unions are for.

You are right.  Unions should always strike all the time!  No matter what the current economic or political situation is, it's almost best to strike!  Even if we're in the bottom of a massive downturn with a populace who is angry and looking for people to blame for the state's fiscal problems, it's time to strike! I apologize for my Democratic thought crime.  Obviously I should be a Republican.

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by: SFGeek @ Fri Aug 14, 2009 at 22:32:02 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

uhh (1.00 / 1)

Anyone who thinks it is wrong for unions to go on strike to get improved benefits is inherently anti-union, because that is what unions are for.

Are you suggesting that no matter what their existing salary/benefits may be, we should always support their going on strike?

Nobody's saying that they should be making minimum wage - and they're not. Believe it or not, there are some cases in which union workers are not getting totally screwed.

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by: Sertorius @ Fri Aug 14, 2009 at 23:12:23 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Damning with faint praise (8.00 / 1)

Wage inequality?  Snort.  BART station agents and train operators are some of the best paid workers in the country with their skillset and educational background, not to mention getting what still amounts to excellent benefits compared to most people in the downturn.

The problem isn't that BART employees are overvalued, the problem is that transit employees -- and all employees -- across the country are undervalued.  Forty years of attacks on the middle class have lead to this situation, and when one of the few unions strong enough to stand up for its members wants to fight, we should be pleased that someone is willing to try to keep some of the American Dream alive.

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by: CaliforniaCondor @ Sat Aug 15, 2009 at 16:46:44 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Minimum Wage (1.00 / 1)

There's a GIANT yawning chasm between what BART train operators are making and minimum wage.  Silly argument. Try again.

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by: qopus @ Sat Aug 15, 2009 at 02:59:54 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Why should union employees finance Arnold's budget? (4.50 / 2)

I'm with Robert on this one?

For those of you who opposed the budget, and those who supported it too:  well, part of what the budget has meant at the state level (and since Arnold is stealing local money for his budget, at the local level as well) means is that the state is asking its workers to accept reduced standards of living and in some cases, the loss of their jobs.

Where do you get off telling those people they should pay for this budget?  Are you giving up a portion of your salary or your benefits due to this budget?  Would you accept the loss of pay from your own fucking job or from your own fucking benefits to pay for this budget?

Don't talk about people in abstract.  In abstract counts for nothing.  What are you paying, personally, for this budget?

We collective employ these people.  If we are asking them to take a pay cut, they are entitled to oppose this.  And that means, in some cases, going out on strike.

Enough of this shit about the public good.  We Californians betrayed these people.  If we won't defend their rights, we have no basis of complaint that they are trying to protect their own interests.

Hypocrites, the lot of you.

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by: mbayrob @ Sat Aug 15, 2009 at 00:29:54 AM UTC

Betraying (0.00 / 0)

Hey mbayrob, speak for yourself.  You may have betrayed someone, but how the f*&^ do you know what I have done?  Go ahead and blame BART riders, but nobody's buying.  They can strike for a month for all I care.

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by: qopus @ Sat Aug 15, 2009 at 03:06:21 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Well, tell us then (0.00 / 0)

So what have you done?

If you're a Californian, these people work for you.  If they lose their jobs, you fired them.  If their wages get cut enough so that their homes get foreclosed, you made them homeless.

All of did.  We are all responsible.  You as well.  So don't weasel out of it.

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by: mbayrob @ Sat Aug 15, 2009 at 03:26:50 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Weaseling Out (0.00 / 0)

Paid PLENTY of taxes that's what I've done.  How's that for what I've done?

I'm not trying to get out of anything.  I'd fire the lot of 'em and sleep soundly when the sheriff came to evict them from their homes.  They get paid better than almost anyone that I know for either sitting in a glass booth all day telling people to press "H" to change a dollar, that is when they can bother to, or "driving" a completely automatic train.  Get rid off all of them, management included.  Clear enough?

Oh, and for all that tax money, the roads here in Oakland are still the worst I've ever seen with the possible exception of SF.

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by: qopus @ Sat Aug 15, 2009 at 03:57:23 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

So (1.00 / 1)

you're opposed to salary cuts for any public sector employees under any circumstances?

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by: Sertorius @ Sun Aug 16, 2009 at 02:50:43 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

No (6.50 / 2)

I think salary cuts for anyone is extremely ruinous economic policy. Where unions exist their members should hold the line as much as possible, whether in the public or private sector.

Wage stagnation and wage decline is one of THE main problems we have faced in this economy over the last 30 years. We've used asset bubbles to try and paper over the problem, but debt is no substitute for wage growth.

Because of that, and because public sector work in California is still one of the few remaining options for many people to enter or remain in the middle-class, it is important that we hold the line against salary cuts.

The main reason people seem to support salary cuts for public sector workers is, as I explained above, there is a widespread sentiment that somehow these workers are undeserving of decent wages and benefits, that we should cram down the workers instead of raising taxes on the wealthy.

It is an insane and stupid approach to take. Like the demands for spending cuts, the demands for wage cuts are done to satisfy other desires, without any consideration at all of the economic impact of these measures.

You can check out any time you like but you can never leave

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by: Robert Cruickshank @ Sun Aug 16, 2009 at 10:48:11 AM UTC

[ Parent ]