#BARTstrike

[kidsviral-blog]

50 people on Twitter pissed at ‘greedy,’ ‘selfish’ unions over #BARTStrike

New Post has been published on https://kidsviral.info/50-people-on-twitter-pissed-at-greedy-selfish-unions-over-bartstrike/

50 people on Twitter pissed at ‘greedy,’ ‘selfish’ unions over #BARTStrike

http://twitter.com/#!/Mattskullivan/status/392114356835459072

Twitchy told you over the weekend about the latest public transportation work stoppage in the Bay Area. After sabotaging the Monday commute, there’s still no end in the sight to the BART strike.

http://twitter.com/#!/RosenbergMerc/status/392398477822406656

Seems like many residents in the liberal enclaves of northern California might finally be souring on Big Labor’s non-labor temper tantrums.

Here are 50 people on Twitter pissed at union leaders holding them hostage. Baby steps. Better late than never.

http://twitter.com/#!/TheMixedOne24/status/392306401575325696 http://twitter.com/#!/JennyLane/status/392320125493186560 http://twitter.com/#!/markybanez_/status/392294621348237312 http://twitter.com/#!/tangogangg/status/392364909612113922 http://twitter.com/#!/AshleyCimellaro/status/392265078013046784 http://twitter.com/#!/357Shahin/status/392042981764509696 http://twitter.com/#!/gcharlop/status/391716788490088448 http://twitter.com/#!/mikeperry159/status/391661762686107648 http://twitter.com/#!/kemo_sabe48/status/391946820466663424 http://twitter.com/#!/dannywilliams86/status/392148104280961024 http://twitter.com/#!/joycechun/status/392380124147900417 http://twitter.com/#!/BrodyDc_/status/392309561513619456 http://twitter.com/#!/olivia_mei/status/392285186156556288 http://twitter.com/#!/craigsano/status/392330467107553280 http://twitter.com/#!/MikeTrujilloPhD/status/392311834897698816 http://twitter.com/#!/__arlynne/status/392302851067625472 http://twitter.com/#!/CBSudduth/status/392306487118151681 http://twitter.com/#!/BusyDadBlog/status/391224606620536832 http://twitter.com/#!/Natekoski/status/392398844941451264 http://twitter.com/#!/poisonscarlettx/status/392331795468795905 http://twitter.com/#!/vcritten/status/392314073502597120 http://twitter.com/#!/JHTScherck/status/392315557149564929 http://twitter.com/#!/RickyDSJr/status/392303257214668801

GOV @JerryBrownGov needs to fire striking BART employees and hire people who want to work.

@SFBART

#BARTstrike #BoycottBART— Urban★Commando (@UrbanCommandoUS) October 21, 2013

http://twitter.com/#!/tjgorton/status/391949793615806466 http://twitter.com/#!/benr/status/392321812924624896

Read more: http://twitchy.com/2013/10/21/50-people-on-twitter-pissed-at-greedy-selfish-unions-over-bartstrike/

[susie-c]

burning down bart strike strawmen

Some particularly shameless San Francisco media outlets have been promoting this petition from Orinda city councilman Steve Glazer to prevent future Bay Area Rapid Transit strikes. It's too bad they didn't do some reporting about it first.

The petition claims that 375,000 commuters use BART every day. By BART's own account, there are about 400,000 rides every day. Not riders -- rides. Unless all those rides are one-way, BART is likely transporting much closer to 200,000 riders every day -- out of the 5.87 million people who live in Bay Area counties where BART runs.

But hey, that's just a simple fact check! The more insidious logic here lies in the comparisons this campaign makes between BART and transit systems in New York and Washington, D.C., where transit strikes are illegal.

New York is the #1 city in the country for carless households, at 55.7 percent; Washington, D.C. is #4 with nearly 37 percent. San Francisco is #14 at 28.6 percent. But that rate for the Bay Area in total runs around 8 percent, according to recent figures. 

The New York subways provide about 8.7 million rides each weekday, compared to the city's population of about 8.3 million. The Washington, D.C. metro is the second busiest transit system in the country, with about 980,000 rides each day, compared to the metro area's population of about 5.86 million. 

Here's that fast and loose breakdown for the top five busiest transit systems in the country:

New York: 8.7 million rides for a population of 8.3 million = 105 percent(!)

D.C.: 980,000 rides for a population of 5.9 million = 16.6 percent

Chicago: 729,000 rides for a population of 2.7 million = 27 percent

Boston area: 531,000 rides for a population of 4 million = 13.3 percent

SF Bay Area: 400,000 rides for a population of 5.9 million = 6.8 percent

You can't directly compare big apples and California car culture.

While a downed BART system certainly has a large impact on transportation in the area, it's not nearly the same gridlock we'd see from a New York subway strike or a D.C. train stoppage. And when we're talking about taking away the most basic of union rights -- the right to stop work -- that massive difference in service level must be acknowledged. 

If you want to prevent workers from striking, at least be honest about it. You aren't standing up for alternative transit in the Bay Area. During the strike, bridges were not overrun with 200,000 extra cars -- they saw an increase of a few thousand, a few percent.

The campaign to prevent workers from striking is not about promoting alternative transit or keeping the region's newly moneyed tech-driven economy humming every day. A lot of those tech companies are in places where BART doesn't even reach. The campaign is about a neoliberal paradigm that's swallowed the Bay Area whole, and is pitting the region's poorest against one another, while still holding tight to its suburban lifestyle.

The San Francisco Chronicle -- a newspaper with a unionized newsroom -- ran this editorial claiming that the Bay Area should restrict BART strikes because of its "transit-first" urban planning. Clearly the writer hadn't seen any of the recent vitriol at the Plan Bay Area meetings, where many more suburban residents claimed support for sprawl than did those who supported density and transit.

A BART strike is undoubtedly inconvenient for a lot of people, including me, who has never made close to the kinds of wages the striking workers make. But all of us have a vested interest in labor holding on to any scrap of power it may have left if we ever hope to be able to lobby on our own behalves in the nearly unionless future.

Moreover, we have a vested interest in not letting ourselves be lied to by people like Orinda city councilman Steve Glazer and the media who support him.

Update: I just wanted to include one more number to consider in this debate, which is that approximately 270,000 cars make daily roundtrips across the Bay Bridge (according to Bloomberg). This data isn't the best, it's a little fast and loose as I also say above, but that's potentially 540,000 one-way car trips, transporting at least that number of passengers, probably many more. So, again, "transit first"? 

[zpants-blog]

Happy Monday! Make this your profile photo if you believe in good jobs for all workers.

[ontransit]

And on the third day ...

A lot of people have been posting this article from Alternet: "7 Key Things You Need to Know About the BART strike in California." I promise we will return to inane vignettes about people texting soon, but I don't think any of these arguments are relevant and for some reason feel compelled to announce this into the Internet. Sorry?

1. The strike was a last resort as negotiations failed.

First or last resort, the ability to strike is a rare privilege. I don’t blame union members for taking advantage of it, but this is not a sympathetic point. For most of us, when “negotiations fail” with our employers, we just get fired.

2. The money is there.

And there are plenty of ways to spend it, given the age of the system and its capacity problems. "The money is there” does not necessarily mean “the money is there for raises.” (It might! But I'd like to hear that from someone with credentials.)

3. BART workers are not greedy.

It wouldn’t matter if they were. In the reality that most of us inhabit, salaries aren’t what we want to be paid; they reflect the value of our labor on the market. And I’m pretty sure, absent the union, you’d find plenty of people willing and able to work as, say, a station agent for less than $80K. 

4. Worker safety is also a huge part of negotiations.

But it’s not the sticking point for the strike, as the union has implied.This kind of messaging is just as disingenuous as BART management’s.

5. More than just a BART strike.

Three people kicking a puppy isn't better than one person kicking a puppy, so I assume this point is just an FYI?

6. Everybody’s wrongly complaining about their commute.

Per the author’s instruction that I “think about what’s at stake for workers,” here’s an obvious anecdote: I buy coffee from a woman who takes BART from Hayward to work three different food service jobs in the city. It’s reasonable to assume that at all three she makes close to minimum wage with no benefits. If she’s spending an hour or so more commuting, and that’s coming out of what little time she has for her family and herself, and the proximate cause of this is that that station agent making $80K is striking for $90K, I'd say she's entitled to complain all she wants.

The strike impacts lots of different people, not just whiny FiDi types on Twitter (myself included). 

7. Silicon Valley capitalizes on the strike.

Silicon Valley capitalizes on everything; that’s the reason it exists.The strike’s happening regardless of whether anybody tries to make money off it. Those efforts might be tacky and opportunistic, but they are not Sean Parker's wedding. 

OK, now I'm done.

[monkeybrainmama]

Our next stop will be Millbrae, for your BART--well, Millbrae

Caltrain operator, forgetting the script doesn't apply this week

[ontransit]

A union rep handed me this flyer on my way home Friday. Apparently the sticking point in the contract negotiations is lightbulbs, not guaranteed raises for station agents making $80K plus benefits. Who knew! 

It seems a pretty disingenuous piece of PR. I’m truly interested in hearing why people trying to commute to non-union jobs should be anything but pissed about the strike—I can only assume there are good arguments for the pay raises that I just haven’t read. But instead of making that case, the SEIU’s message to the ridership is that we’re at critical risk of getting stabbed in a stairwell at MacArthur. 

Well, sorry, guys, but I already knew that and I still want to take the train. Got mace, will travel. 

[markmenji]

#BARTstrike

[ontransit]

dysfunction is

... waking up to six text alerts for delayed trains and thinking, "Oh, good! BART's working!"

[socialistworker]

Stephanie Schwartz reports on the issues facing public employees in the Bay Area.

July 3, 2013

TRANSIT WORKERS in the Bay Area walked out of contract negotiations and into the streets on July 1.

They were joined by Oakland city workers who held a one-day unfair labor practices (ULP) strike. Together, the strikers shut down the financial centers of Oakland and San Francisco. Oakland city workers returned to their jobs on July 2, while the BART strike is ongoing.

The 2,400 Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) workers walking the picket line have not had a raise in five years. After claiming a lack of funds during contract negotiations in 2009, BART announced a surplus of $4 million in 2010. BART officials are offering a 2 percent raise this year and 8 percent over the next four years. But this barely keeps up with the cost of living in the Bay Area--and that doesn't even account for the five-year wage freeze.

Additionally, the raise is contingent on factors that go beyond the bargaining table--such as whether ridership increases and whether fewer employees take leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act. BART is also demanding that workers make increased contributions to pensions and health insurance. BART employees aren't eligible for Social Security, so BART already saves money on not contributing to the Social Security system--and now it wants to transfer pension costs onto workers.

Since 2009, BART has cut operations staff by 8 percent. Meanwhile, workplace injuries and assaults are up 43 percent. In a particularly egregious incident on April 13, an attacker threatening to assassinate Black people assaulted a station agent.

Brian, one of many supporters of the strike who attended a July 1 rally in San Francisco, said the BART workers are standing for a just cause:

[We need] to support a living wage for all workers across the country and to show that workers have value...It's very similar to the financial crisis. It's always blamed on the debtors whenever there are bankruptcies, but there's also predatory lending. The idea that lower-class workers or people who need to borrow money are abusing society is wrong. These are the people who make society work, this is where the real stuff comes from.

[READ MORE]