BART Strike: Another Instance of Media Portraying Workers as Greedy

[Starry Messenger]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/175063/bart-strike-another-instance-media-portraying-workers-greedy#

<snip>

Workers are asking for a wage increase (they haven’t received one in five years) and improved safety measures (bullet-proof glass in station booths, better lighting in tunnels, etc.). The union is asking for a 23 percent raise over four years, and BART countered with an offer of an 8 percent raise over four years, but the union says this offer falls below cost of living increases.

A BART spokesperson called the safety issues a “smoke screen” even though BART police have reported more than 2,400 serious crimes at just five stations in the last three years—crimes serious enough to require reporting to the FBI.

<snip>

In all of these instances, the striking workers are presented as a nefarious force fixated on disrupting other workers’ commute for… some reason. Probably greedy motives. Usually, these kinds of articles open with a profile of some poor unsuspecting sucker who can’t figure out how they’re going to get to and from work because of the evil BART employees.

Here’s the Los Angeles Times showing how it’s done:

Wayne Phillips did everything but swim as he struggled to get to his tech job in this city’s Financial District on Monday morning.

His usual smooth ride on a Bay Area Rapid Transit train was derailed by the system’s first strike in 16 years. So Phillips drove from the East Bay city of Concord to Oakland. He stood in a “quarter-mile-long” line for a ferry. Then he gave up and jumped on his own boat, a 30-foot Bayliner named Lovin’ Life.

Oh no! Poor Wayne! The reader is left feeling angry at those terrible BART workers who are on strike for… some reason. Probably for more gold chalices.


<snip>

[byeya]

1. When there's war on the workers, it's foolish not to expect them to resist.

Best of luck to the transportation workers at BART and Solidarity!

[Starry Messenger]

4. +++

[displacedtexan]

2. He had to take his own boat? That's just terrible!

Add that to the ever-increasing price of polo pony food, and you've got a real tragedy!

Seriously, the majority of BART and MUNI drivers I ride with are middle aged workers who bust their asses (literally) to keep on schedule and help riders as much as possible.

[Starry Messenger]

3. I know!

Seriously, we know most BART riders are not boat owners, but the media coverage of this has been ludicrous.

The BART staff has always been remarkably helpful and friendly in a job that requires contact with 1000s of members of the public each day.

One station master testified that she has to open the station each morning running a gauntlet of people sleeping by the gates (and we're not criticizing what people have to do to survive). Cops would not do that for no raises every year, let's be honest.

[Brickbat]

5. K&R for solidarity.

[Starry Messenger]

6. Thank you Brickbat!

[WillyT]

7. HUGE K & R !!! - Thank You !!!

[marlakay]

8. Never had a ton of money

My husband is retired Bart driver. Ask him about the electrical fires he put out himself on the train. Or driving the train during the big earthquake where the tracks were swerving and trees flying.

Ask him about nightly at 2am trying to get drunks off the train. I could go on and on. They deserve what they get.

[Starry Messenger]

9. Hugs to you and your husband.

Fair wages for hard work is how it should be.

[Demo_Chris]

10. Apparently they earn somewhere between 62K and 71K annually

Or put another way, they are basically the top 10 or 15% of all wage earners.

[Starry Messenger]

12. It takes 74k to provide basic needs for a family of four in SF Bay Area.

And not all workers at BART make the numbers cited. That's an average, and not starting pay.

[Demo_Chris]

15. So a single wage earner working for BART makes that...

I have nothing but sympathy for workers and the poor. I'm poor myself. This doesn't seem to me to be about that. This is about HIGHLY paid state workers asking for more money.

[Starry Messenger]

16. No, they do not.

Please see the chart linked. http://www.mercurynews.com/salaries/bay-area/2012?appSession=28016177315827&RecordID=&PageID=2&PrevPageID=2&cbNewPageSize=250&

The union train workers who are on strike do not make those wages as single earners, that is clearly not what I said. Those numbers were averaged by the media putting in high salaries of management who are not part of the striking workers. The train and station operators make much less. I am poor too and live in the Bay Area. I support the strikers.

[marlakay]

18. I can affirm my husband never made that kind of money

he worked as train driver for 30 yrs before he retired in 2005 and we never made that much.

We had to live outside of bay area and he commuted long hours. Couldn't afford anything closer.

And with his paying child support I was lucky even with working fulltime myself at AAA to shop at Target.

The only time he came close to those amounts was when he worked overtime on purpose for a few years before we retired to save money.

[Starry Messenger]

20. Thank you malarkay.

It's something that shouldn't even have to be explained, but everyone loves to hate public workers when these things happen.

[Gormy Cuss]

11. The San Jose Merc/BANG is working overtime to make the workers look bad.

I read this in a Bay Area News Group paper today:

The average BART worker -- including management and non-union employees -- made $83,157 in gross pay in 2012, up from $80,588 in 2010, according to an analysis of payroll records by this newspaper.

http://www.mercurynews.com/traffic/ci_23567913/bart-strike-saturday-talks-resume-new-proposals-planned


Huh. Who adds in MANAGEMENT and non-union employees when reporting about striking unions? In this case, it's a pretty obvious way of inflating the average salaries to make the unions look greedy.

[Starry Messenger]

13. I was just looking at those numbers Gormy.

http://www.mercurynews.com/salaries/bay-area/2012?appSession=28016177315827&RecordID=&PageID=2&PrevPageID=2&cbNewPageSize=250&

I don't know if they put in the salaries of the BART police too, they are in the database at this link that the media has been throwing around. They are nearly all above 80k.

There has been an irresponsible distortion campaign. X(

[Gormy Cuss]

14. The numbers jumped out at me because they were so much higher than other news reports.

It's really shameless.

[Starry Messenger]

17. Ever since the papers were all bought up by BANG, they've been unrelentingly anti-union.

My blood pressure shoots up when I read anything they write about working people.

[marlakay]

19. thats what through the average off

the managers make a ton of money and basically sit around doing nothing or take vacations on company time!

[Omaha Steve]

21. KICK!!!

And R.