Wading Through the BART Propaganda

A second Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) strike was narrowly averted Monday when Governor Jerry Brown intervened to order a seven-day investigation of the labor dispute during which workers are banned from walking out.  BART management, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1021 and Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1555 are still miles apart on the basic issues of pay, benefits and worker safety.  Management is hoping to essentially freeze real wages at their current level after four years of cuts while workers fight to increase their real take home pay, institute new safety measures and protect current health plans and pensions.  The entire union-management dispute is a case study on the dangers of union givebacks, media’s anti-union bias, management’s leveraging of the recession to cut wages and declining solidarity in American society…

Greedy BART workers…

When I first tried to make sense of what the hell was going on at BART, I found the media accounts harshly critical of BART workers.  BART workers were making $71,000 or $80,000 or $120,000 per year.  Their medical costs (curiously represented per month this time) were incredibly low.  They paid nothing into their pensions and refused to chip in.  There was never any mention of the previous four year contract, what the current wage proposals worked out to in real terms or BART’s financial situation.

… trying to stave off unnecessary wage, benefit and pension cuts

Lo and behold, all of the missing information (and corrected disinformation) gave a radically different and more accurate portrayal of the labor dispute.  In 2009, BART workers accepted a shit contract to “pitch in” during the recession that included a four year pay freeze (amounting to a real pay cut), medical and pension contribution cuts, and a hiring freeze that reduced the BART workforce by 8% between 2009 and 2013.  BART workers currently earn a maximum of $62,000 per year in salary plus any overtime they work (to cover for the 1 in 12 positions which are no longer filled).  BART employees are not eligible for Social Security (they will receive $0 from the federal government upon retiring) and rely exclusively on their BART pensions.  Additionally, BART workers have committed a significant percentage of their salaries to pensions and retiree medical care for decades.

Management’s current proposal is more of the same – a whole lot of nothing

The current fight is about whether or not BART workers will see their living standards rise or continue to fall.  Ridership is up big, with 17% more annual passengers in FY 2013 than FY 2010, and BART is running a budget surplus of tens of millions of dollars per year.  Despite this position, BART is offering a paltry wage increase of 2% per year (in a region where annual rent increases routinely run into the double-digits) which, when paired with increased employee contributions to medical coverage and pensions, will result in continued cuts in real take home pay.  To prepare and serve this shit sandwich to workers, BART is paying veteran anti-union negotiator Thomas Hock $399,000.  Hock has repeatedly violated federal labor law by bargaining in bad faith and been the subject of complaints in Arizona, Colorado and Texas.  Hock’s tactics include vacationing in the middle of negotiations, refusing to release pertinent information like up-to-date budgets and generally slowing and stalling negotiations.

The public can’t recognize their own brother

Hock utilizes this strategy of slow-peddling contract talks and provoking strikes because he knows that the public has lost almost all notions of solidarity, especially with public workers.  I couldn’t believe how “liberal” posted Facebook messages during the first strike whining about delays on the Bay Bridge or attacking BART workers for being lazy.  These progressive primadonnas were more than willing to take food off another man’s plate if it saved them 30 minutes of driving time.  Fellow union members also failed to stand with their brothers and sisters, as ATU Local 192 (East Bay bus drivers) declined to strike in solidarity even though they were legally allowed to do so.  The fact that people aren’t able to identify with and support fellow workers fighting to improve their standard of living is a strong sign of the overall decline of solidarity in American society.

How it should be, not how it is

So what happens next?  Well what should happen is this.  BART workers go on strike indefinitely alongside transit workers from across the region.  Angry San Francisco, East Bay and South Bay residents flood BART management’s office with calls telling them to fire Hock, bring in a serious negotiating team and hammer out a deal.  After a week of intense negotiations, BART workers end up with decent pay increases, new workplace safety measures and sustained medical benefits and pensions.  The trains start up again then next day and workplace standards have been raised for everyone in the Bay.  How it will end nobody knows, but the media’s continued anti-worker bias and the public’s lack of solidarity aren’t terribly promising signs.