Why the BART Strike Happened
by Randy Shaw‚ Jul. 02‚ 2013
While the 2013 BART strike involves current disputes over wages, pensions and worker safety, its roots go back decades. BART management and its workforce have long had a poisonous relationship. The 90 day 1979 strike/lockout is the most obvious example, and despite the last strike occurring back in1997, bargaining always goes down to the wire with a work stoppage imminent. Why is this relationship so stormy? The chief reason is BART management’s historic insensitivity to its workers.
For over thirty years, BART’s primarily white management has disrespected its heavily minority workforce. And while compensation levels could reduce tensions over this lack of respect in good times, in the recent down years BART workers have gone backward. These workers (along with riders) have paid the price when the BART Board’s suburban majority long refused to raise revenue by charging for parking at its stations, and when BART squandered money on costly expansions rather than improving safety and service in existing areas. BART management never pays a price for its disrespect, and no elected BART Board member has lost their seat due to work stoppages during their tenure.
If you have lived in the Bay Area long enough, the BART strike was no surprise. This script plays out time and time again, and it will continue to occur until BART establishes a more respectful relationship with its workers.
When my wife and I moved to San Francisco in June 1979, we sought to live near a BART line. We were attending Hastings Law School and the Civic Center station was a block away. Unfortunately, the start of class coincided with a long BART strike/lockout, so we spent months on the incredibly overcrowded and much slower Mission Street buses.
full: http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=11542
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