BART Strike – What are you going to do?
Categories: Bay Area News
Written By: Mayor Concord California
BART has a daily ridership of about 355,000. As the contract negotiations continue, the talk of a sytem wide strike seems inevitable. Contract negotiations between BART management and its labor unions continue and are expected to continue until at least the extended deadline of 11:59 p.m., Thursday, July 9. At present, the labor unions have not issued a 72-hour strike notice. Under the current negotiation ground rules, ATU 1555 and SEIU 1021 have agreed to notify BART management at least 72 hours before beginning a strike and since that has not been done then it looks like the system is safe for this week, but what about next week?
BART Strikes people suffer
I’m all for employees doing what they have to do for benefits and salary increases. That’s the whole idea around setting a contract that gets reevaluated. Thankfully, the public safety arm of BART is not allowed to strike and my opinion is that emergency services should never be able to stop working because of events like this.
by drain
What’s your plan?
In 1997, the last time BART workers went on strike, the system was shut down for six days and wreaked havoc on Bay Area commute times. Freeway commutes typically took 30 minutes longer than usual as masses of additional cars packed the freeways. Since the ridership of BART has increased a lot since 1997, the expected delays on freeways would be much longer.
People that ride BART to work should let their management know that this is going to impact their schedules. Maybe telecommuting is an option you can look into. This could also be a good opportunity to use some of the PTO time you have coming to you. There is no saying how long a strike like this could last but having some time off while BART decides how to fix the negotiation mess would be nice. If neither of these are options, you should just bite the bullet and expect a longer commute to the office for a while. Maybe see if there are people around you that can join a carpool into work.
What ever you decide, make sure you have a plan so that if Monday comes around and BART isn’t running then you will know what to do.
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July 9th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
The BART strike that seems inevitable has been on my mind lately, too. Working and living on opposite sides of the hills makes transit difficult. For those without cars, are the cities planning to step up bus services until BART figures things out?
GJELblogger’s last blog post..Congested Highways + BART Strike = Not Good
July 12th, 2009 at 8:50 am
I work down on the Oakland Port/terminal area and the nature of the job is that I have to drive around from site to site so I cannot use BART. A strike makes the road a mess and pushes me more to off peak hours and maybe to scheduling changes so I am in the area only 3 days a week but for longer periods. Not exactly my first choice for good customer responsiveness but could be sustained for a few weeks as an extraordinary situation.
July 15th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
BART employees should be grateful they still have a job. To threaten a strike when many are struggling to keep their jobs or to find a job is pure selfishness. A strike could cost many of those who depend on it their jobs or the opportunity to get a job. Does BART union leadership have ANY conscience?
September 10th, 2009 at 11:55 am
We have a Teachers strike up here in WA that has been deemed illegal. The union leaders are heading off to jail.
Jonathan’s last blog post..Negotiate! What are you afraid of?