by Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
We have heard very little in the media about the ongoing dispute between the local transit authority here and the unions representing workers at the Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) the light rail system serving much of the San Francisco Bay Area.
We have heard very little in the media about the ongoing dispute between the local transit authority here and the unions representing workers at the Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) the light rail system serving much of the San Francisco Bay Area.
After two short strikes and dominating the mass media
throughout the summer, the dispute was settled after two scabs were killed
while working on BART tracks. But before the transit board signed the agreement
accepted by both the unions and management, they decided that a clause already
agreed to had to go, so they accepted the contract minus the clause.
It was a mistake the bosses said and blamed it on an “error by a temporary employee”. That’s
nice of them, one of their employees with the least rights. Mind you, BART’s “top negotiators” had already signed off on the deal. And these top negotiators were experts. The
district even brought in a well known union busting character from the private
sector to ensure the BART workers were taken down a peg and the transit
district was willing to force them out on strike to do that.
The controversial clause was an agreement that 6 weeks of
the 12 weeks allowed workers by the Family Medical Leave Act would be
paid. The FMLA allows workers time to
spend with sick family members or to bond with a newborn child for example but
it is unpaid leave. The US is light
years behind other industrial democracies when it comes to benefits like these.
"District negotiators would never
have knowingly agreed to such a financially backbreaking proposal." BART
spokesperson Alicia Trost announced in the media. The bosses are claiming such
a provision would cost $44 million.
The two largest unions representing BART workers, SEIU 1021
and ATU 1555 have filed a lawsuit claiming that the district’s board of
directors broke state law by approving parts of an agreed contract they like
but removing a provision they didn’t.
Union officials are willing to meet with management but BART
has not ‘reached out” to them, SEIU’s
chief negotiator told the media. They
are willing to help find solutions to the problem once the contract as agreed
to is signed.
"BART has never
offered to us to negotiate over this supposed mistake.” Says Kerianne
Steele, SEIU 1021's attorney
Throughout this entire period, the past six months or so,
the leaders of the Unions involved have made every effort to compromise and
each time they’ve been shot down. They
made it clear from the very beginning that if they could just be left with what
they have (or their members could) they would go away. It is the same old tune. The heads of organized Labor are wed to the
Team Concept, the view that bosses and workers have the same interest;, it is
impossible to fight back with this world-view.
During this entire period, numerous public sector unions were in contract talks and could legally strike yet there was no effort on the part of Labor's leadership in this area to unite these forces, draw in the communtiies we serve by fighting for jobs higher wages and better benefits for all
and increased services for the communities, using the strike weapon to win these demands. Just the opposite was the case with BART as the ATU leadership of one local had its members scab on the other.
The members and workers in general instinctively resist the austerity agenda of the capitalist offensive and this resistance has to be undermined by the union officials as it threatens their world-view. They have to suppress any movement from within their ranks that threatens this relationship they have with the bosses; organizing this anger, mobilizing the potential power of labor can only lead to chaos as they see it.
The members and workers in general instinctively resist the austerity agenda of the capitalist offensive and this resistance has to be undermined by the union officials as it threatens their world-view. They have to suppress any movement from within their ranks that threatens this relationship they have with the bosses; organizing this anger, mobilizing the potential power of labor can only lead to chaos as they see it.
In this instance they are quite prepared to address
management’s concerns, make some compromise if they’d only sign the damn
contract. But the bosses don’t fear
them. Why should they? So the union
officials enter the arena where the bosses rule, the courts. If bourgeois
justice worked, we would have never had to have the battles and near civil war
scenarios we had in this country over the right to a union, the right to
collectively bargain. If their justice
worked, the prisons would not be full of workers that capitalism refuses to put
to work, instead, most of the members of Congress would be in jail along with Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, our friend Obama and the notorious war criminal, Henry Kissinger.
The union officials have been pretty silent about this
provision that allows a human being time with loved ones during a time of need
without losing one’s job and without losing pay. Instead it should be a rallying cry. It is a
great victory salvaged out of a generally mediocre concessionary deal. It should be held up as an example of what
all workers should have and the transit unions and the entire local and
national Labor movement should take this opportunity to make this happen.
Of course, we know they won’t do this for the reasons I have
already outlined here, but this is yet another opportunity lost if rank and
file workers don’t move in this direction, don’t draw the conclusion that we
have to build fighting rank and file caucuses based on opposition to the Team
Concept and with an anti-austerity agenda and a direct action strategy that can
drive back the capitalist offensive and change the direction of organized labor
along with its present leadership.
The two sides here are arguing over the cost of this
provision but this too is a mistake, this is a minor detail. As Darwin
Bond Graham commented in an East Bay Express article earlier this year, “Property taxes make up less than 5 percent
of BART's budget, even though the system's impact on real estate values in a
few Bay Area hotspots has been immense.”
This publicly funded transit has delivered millions of
workers to workplaces particularly in downtown San Francisco and other
financial and industrial areas. This is
bringing labor power to the bosses, a valuable service as it is the source of
their profit. They don't rely on private enterprise to bring labor power to the workplace, the taxpayer does it for practically nothing. In addition, land and corporate buildings around BART stations
has skyrocketed in value due to this publicly funded transit system affecting
sales and rents; it’s been a great gift to the corporations.
Even this is a detail. I am certainly not the only one to
have pointed out the vast amount of money sloshing around in society. Leaving aside trillions wasted on the wars
and other predatory adventures fought on behalf of the corporations, there is
$3 trillion or so being hoarded by business as its not profitable to invest in
production or social infrastructure.
There is another $26 to $32 trillion stashed away in offshore bank accounts
by the global super rich.
So it’s not a question of lack of funds it is simply the
allocation of society’s resources. Even with public entities like transit,
these agencies are still governed and directed by representatives of one of the
two Wall Street parties or bourgeois parties if you like and as agents of the
1% their job is to ensure that the working class pay. We have to have an independent political voice and an independent movement that can challenge the dictatorship capital has over society.
Six weeks off with pay to care for sick family members or to
welcome a newborn in to the world.
Now that’s something to be proud of. That's progress.
Now that’s something to be proud of. That's progress.
No comments:
Post a Comment