BART Union leaders give the bosses what they want without a fight.

Labor leaders had no strategy for winning

by Richard Mellor
AFSCME Local 444, retired

The Russian revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky pointed out many years ago that the crisis of the working class was a crisis of leadership. It takes only a cursory glance in to the pages of history to see that, the Spanish Revolution, the German revolution of 1923 and countless, I mean countless of Labor struggles; struggles in which workers sacrificed everything for a decent life for them, their families and the future generations.

Here in the San Francisco Bay Area after months and months of two aborted strikes and the refusal of the heads of organized Labor to fight we have seen yet another in a long list of betrayals.

I am referring to the months long back and forth between members of ATU 1555 representing train operators and SEIU 1021 representing Station Agents at BART, the Bay Area Rapid Transit system.*  This could have been a struggle that Labor and all workers including those who use the system could have won; a victory that would have inspired millions and transformed the balance of class forces between capital and Labor on a national level.

I remind readers that in the end, a concessionary contract was finally forced on the workers and a long hot summer of discontent was over.  Tentative agreements were signed by negotiators on both sides and the management friendly agreement was ready to be signed by the Transit District’s public board of directors.

But there was a glitch.  Section 4.8 of the new agreement was not to the Transit Districts liking. Their negotiators had made a mistake, they said. Section 4.8 allowed six of the twelve weeks unpaid leave workers are entitled to under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to care for a sick relative or bond with a new born family member, to be paid.

They had hired an expensive union busting hatchet man from a notorious private transit firm to negotiate for them and apparently a clause they would never have signed, was signed.  We were to find out later that the cowardly board and their union buster weren’t responsible for this, it was a low level temporary employee.  How nice of them, blame the guy with no rights.

The bosses refused to sign the contract, forced the union leadership back to the table and they meekly complied after whining about lawsuits etc. 

Given that the entire leadership of organized Labor support the Team Concept, the view that bosses and workers have the same economic interests and are therefore on the same team, I didn’t expect much, in fact I would have bet my childhood teddy bear the union officials would help the bosses out.

Well, here it is.  The officials have finally settled with the management, section 4.8 is history, it’s gone, (after all, anyone can make a mistake can’t they?) and in it’s place, some minor changes in the bereavement leave which most public sector workers have.

Here’s the new contract language: minus 4.8

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Here is how the San Francisco Chronicle reported it:

Under the deal announced Saturday, the district's bereavement leave policy will be expanded to allow workers paid time off in the event of the death of a grandchild or step-parent of a spouse or domestic partner. The agency also agreed to build new break rooms for station agents at the Daly City and Millbrae stations and construct a break room at the West Oakland station, to be paid for through the district's existing station modernization program. BART will also allow eligible workers more flexibility in how they pay for the costs of their family medical leave.

The agency said there were "additional administrative changes" to the contract, but did not elaborate.

Here’s the new contract language traded for the previously agreed to section 4.8.

 

Crisis of leadership indeed.  I say again, we are in a war on two fronts. We are in a war against the bosses and the increasing capitalist offensive that intends to make us pay for their crisis through more austerity and taking from us all we have won over the last 150 years.  We are also in a more complex war and that is against the collaborationist policies of the head of organized Labor as seen so clearly in this example.  This is the more complicated war but we cannot avoid it no less than we can avoid the struggle against the bosses, they will  not stop; they are driven by the laws of the market to continue the offensive.

We saw the repeated failures to bring the power of organized Labor and all workers to the table in this dispute.  We have documented it on this blog and others have written about it. This clause should have been championed as a major victory in a generally concessionary deal.  It is a humane clause.  It is a clause that speaks of family values in the real sense and could have been a rallying cry for all workers to fight around among others. Society can afford it, society is, as the Wall Street Journal says repeatedly, "Awash with cash".

The struggle between BART workers and the Transit District is a lesson in how not to conduct one.  It lays bare the class collaboration and traitorous role played by the heads of organized Labor; they have abrogated their right to lead.  Rank and  file, members of the Unions and all workers must take a note of this betrayal, must recognize that we can't leave it to them any longer.  The top heads of organized Labor are not fighters, they worship the market and capital.  They sit on the commissions of the 1% and their competitive councils.  They attend their universities where they soak up their economic views like a sponge.  They view the unions built by the sweat and blood of generations of workers as employment agencies with them as the CEO's.  They are nothing but Labor Brokers.

Here in the Bay Area we should remember section 4. 8 as part of our history, yet another betrayal.

I would like to think that the rank and file of the BART Unions will reject this and revolt from below but I do not think this likely. It's Christmas, they've been through an exhausting six months, the leaders of our movement are entrenched for the time being.  Regrettably it will take further shocks to cause the long awaited rebellion from the depths of organized Labor and it will most likely be ignited from without.

To read more of this dispute go to the BART label on the right.

*AFSCME also represents workers at BART

BART: union leaders look to courts to save one bright spot in concessionary deal

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. 

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.

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.

BART bosses renege on a contract already signed. United community/labor action must defend the contract

Source: KTVU

By Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

The saga of the struggle between transit workers and the bosses in the San Francisco Bay Area continues. Here’s what happened.  After two strikes and months of contentious negotiations and lost opportunities as union leaders refused to mobilize a general offensive against the transit authority, BART workers finally agreed to a deal after two scabs were killed while working on the tracks.  The tragedy was clearly the fault of management who allowed an unqualified operator to move a train.

So both sides accepted the deal and the contract was signed last month. The BART board of directors was scheduled to sign off on it yesterday. Instead, they voted to accept the contract minus a clause in the contract that they have decided, in retrospect, to renege on.

In their eagerness to force their employees out on strike as they waged a public campaign demonizing them in the 1%’s mass media, perhaps they overlooked it, or did not pay enough attention to the details.  BART officials have stated publicly that they didn't intend to have the clause in the contract, and that it was, “Inadvertently included by a temporary employee.”  according to KTVU news.

So let’s think about this.  The bosses, in this case in the form of elected politicians who are functioning as agents of the 1%, carrying out their policies of austerity, went and hired a union busting privatizer of public resources.  They spent or allocated more than $21 million of public funds in an attempt to bust the union and drive down the wages and benefits of these workers as part of the general offensive against all workers and our communities.  The man they hired, Tom Hock, was an “expert” a “professional”.

But despite all this, the transit agency is now claiming the management signed something they didn’t really mean to sign.  The mainstream media reports today that, “BART officials said they didn't intend to have that provision in the contract, and that it was inadvertently included by a temporary employee.”

Oh well, all that money wasted.  But whether they want to blame it on some poor subordinate or claim they didn’t mean it and it was a mistake is irrelevant; they signed it.

Union officials are outraged of course as despite their protestations beforehand the transit board ignored them and went ahead with their game plan as they have done all along. It’s a good bet that some of these board members received workers dues money in the form of political donations for their election campaigns.

Josie Mooney lead negotiator for SEIU 1021 told the media that the union heads will “discuss the matter with their attorneys and their members and will announce their ‘course of action’ soon.”. She went on to say that, “The board's action Thursday was illegal and constitutes an unfair labor practice”. Mooney also told the media that she had “ never before seen management approve a contract without approving a provision its negotiators had already agreed to.”

But a lot has changed in 20 years.  Union officials like Ms. Mooney have bent over backwards to accommodate the bosses’ agenda forcing concessionary contracts down members’ throats for so long that the bosses don’t fear them at all.  In fact, they hardly need them anymore.  The union officials made it clear to the transit board that they would be willing to talk to them about the controversial clause but they must sign the contract management and the union agreed to and the bosses told them to take a hike.

No doubt the next step for the union hierarchy will be to file an “unfair labor practice” lawsuit.

This is where years of conciliation and outright class collaboration on the part of the union hierarchy has brought us.  The period when the union officials had some room to maneuver, a period when they could to a certain extent pretend to be fighting for their members is history.  The one or two day strike, a letter or two to a Democrat who might walk the line for an hour, all that doesn’t work any more.

What we are facing is a coordinated and conscious offensive of the capitalist class as they aim to place US workers on rations. Hundreds of bases and thousands of troops around the world permanently occupying countries on behalf of US corporations and their profits costs money and they expect us to pay. Global competition and the rise of China, Brazil, Russia etc. has weakened US capitalism on the world stage despite its ability to blow the entire world to bits and this contributes to the drive to make us "competitive".

The crushing of the UAW that preceded the increased offensive against the public sector, both workers and services, is part of this coordinated assault. The increased militarization of the police and police violence in the communities and against social movements like Occupy are all part of this coordinated offensive.  We cannot win if we don’t build a united direct action movement that can unite all the isolated struggles that are arising as a consequence of this war against workers and the poor..

Section 4.8, the clause that the bosses are now reneging on should be pointed out as the huge gain that it is. Union officials should make a public issue of it and demand it be expanded to all workers, union and non-union alike. Look at the graphic I used in a previous piece on this subject and see how backward we are in the US when it comes to social services, rights and benefits when compared to other countries.  Thanks to the BART workers, their members who have sick relatives or a new child can spend six weeks caring for them or bonding with the child without losing income.  This is a wise use of public money and a huge victory for all of us.  It is a humane and efficient gain.

The rank and file of the unions involved must not allow their leaders to return to the table to make a deal on this clause which is what they will do if they can. The boss would likely offer a lump sum or some sort of monetary bribe to give up what is already a done deal or to drop a lawsuit.

There should be an immediate call for mass meetings of the transit unions to discuss this issue.  If the contract is open then the right to strike is there.  Even if it is not, a campaign must be built to build enough momentum and support to defy legal attempts to stop us using the strike as a weapon especially to defend a contract that’s already been agreed to.  If the bosses can renege on a deal so can we. But this time put some meat on the table, including increased benefits, wages, rights and gains like sect. 4.8 for all workers and other demands that benefit the riding public.

We are under a concerted assault and we have to change our tactics and strategy if we are to survive. 

Another point that needs making is this: newly elected socialist on Seattle City Council, Kshama Sawant’s response to the Boeing bosses threatening to leave town if workers don’t meekly hand over their living standards is for the workers to take over the plant.

This is the difference between a socialist or any genuine fighter for working people and our communities and the Democratic politicians who actually ally with the union hierarchy in order to suppress militancy and ensure lots of money and volunteers at election time.

BART workers: hold firm for six weeks paid family leave, we'll all benefit

By Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

I have been involved in numerous negotiations on behalf on my union.  Not as a paid representative but as an elected rank and file member.  At contract time the agency I worked for usually handed over lots of ratepayer funds and taxpayer money to a private law firm; they didn’t trust our own human resources dept. perhaps.

One time we had a dispute over what the bosses referred to as “sick leave abuse. It was an ongoing thing with them. They used to make us put down on the sick leave slip what our ailment was.  We stopped that practice but they were always trying to limit it. We had better sick leave and vacation benefits than most workers I worked in the public sector, but even in the public sector, they don’t like to pay you when you’re not working. It is this somewhat more humane and secure work environment that the 1% wants to be rid of. 

Over the years and after numerous battles with them defending workers who they accused of abusing their sick leave rights, we came to an agreement on a “sick leave verification program” which instituted a process for determining abuse. We also won family sick leave and a few sick days were allowed for this purpose.  The important part of this leave was that it was not subject to the verification clause; this leave could not be included in determining abuse.

Some time after this, our bosses made a bit of a mistake; a good thing in a battle if you're on the other team.  They agreed that the 13 days annual sick leave we had could be used for family illness, or what we called family sick leave.  What they forgot was that they couldn’t use family sick leave in order to curb excessive time off the job. More and more workers called in family sick so family sick had to go.  They tried repeatedly to rid themselves of it even admitting it was a mistake and that workers were using FS as a means of getting more time off without being disciplined, or worse, fired.

Even though we had better time off benefits than most, the US provides little paid time of for workers compared to Europeans for example (see the graphics).  When they boast about us being more productive it is because we spend more time at work than workers in other industrial democracies; two months more in many cases. US workers are starved for more leisure time and will find some way to get it.

When the boss told some of us in the leadership that they’d made a mistake and hadn’t intended including all 13 sick days in the family sick program, we told them in no uncertain terms, “See you in three years at the negotiating table, we’ll talk then” That’s what they used to tell us.

A similar issue has arisen in the ongoing dispute between the transit authority and its employees here in the San Francisco Bay Area.  This blog has many commentaries on this issue under the “BART” label.  The workers at BART, the light rail system here, went back to work last month after two scabs were killed by another one operating a train. The two sides came to an agreement and the bosses got their concessions which was expected given the refusal of the leaders of both the rail and bus system unions to unite all the transit workers and the communities in a wider campaign and joint strike action for more union jobs, increased services, free travel for seniors etc. (see previous blogs).

Members of the unions involved voted to accept the deal and after a contentious summer and two short strikes that revealed the tremendous potential power of organized Labor, everything was supposed to get back to normal. But the bosses are now trying to renege on the agreement saying that one of the tentative agreements they signed was a mistake. “We’ve reviewed the chronology of events concerning section 4.8 and are convinced that it was never the District’s intention to include the disputed Family Medical Leave Act proposal in the contract.” says a BART spokesperson.

Under the Family Medical Leave Act, BART workers, as we were, are allowed 12 weeks of unpaid

leave to care for a family member or after the birth of a child etc.  The contract that was accepted by both BART negotiators and the unions included a clause, sect. 4.8, that allowed six weeks of the FMLA’s twelve be paid. On Friday evening, the BART Board of Directors voted 7-1 to send the general manager back to the bargaining table with the unions to work out one final labor issue. 

The union leadership, leaders of SEIU and ATU, are up in arms and denying this was a mistake. “Maybe the people running the District don’t know what they’re doing…” John Arantes, president of the SEIU chapter representing BART workers, told the transit board.  “Now what you have is buyer’s remorse, you bought it and now you want to return it. Well there are no returns.”

The statement from Arantes, an official somewhat closer to the ranks and subject to more internal pressure, stands out when compared to the attorney for SEIU 1021 Kerianne Steele and the Executive Director of SEIU 1021 Pete Castelli.  Steele made it clear that a deal will be made as long as protocol is followed and that means the board signing the contract which they were expected to on November 21^st.  Until the contract is signed, “we’re not interested in modifying the language at all”, she told the media. “An agreement is an agreement.”

Castelli told the media that it would likely be a few days before his union made a decision on how to respond and  "We're not ruling anything out, but we're not inclined to go back to the bargaining table,''

These comments show why workers do not need lawyers and so-called high paid union experts negotiating for us or speaking for us.  If we have a contract with an employer, we need legal advice to ensure the words on the page expression our intention.  But we cannot place our faith in lawyers, experts, or the Democratic Party when it comes to our livelihoods. As this blog stressed in previous commentaries, these officials completely failed the workers involved, and future workers, by not preparing for this battle long before negotiations and uniting all transit workers, the unemployed and our communities in a generalized offensive again the power behind the board and its management, the 1%

Whether this was a mistake or not is irrelevant. The bosses are complaining that paying workers under sect 4.8 would cost as much as $44 million. The unions say no more the $5 million.  The two statements by the paid officials of the bureaucracy are weak and intended to let the bosses know that they are willing to make things right for them.

But this struggle is not about money.  The BART board brought in renowned union buster Tom Hock, a major player at the private transport company Veolia. Veolia runs a local transit company for the disabled, MV Transportation where workers earn less pay and receive fewer benefits.  These workers are represented by the Teamsters and those officials have been absent thought this lengthy struggle also, a disgrace.

.

A BART worker told me today that Veolia was given a retainer of $900,000 to run the scab buses during a BART stoppage and that he thought it was done twice for a total of $1.8 million.  He told me that BART allotted a $21 million fund to run buses during an extended strike, I have not confirmed this.  I have given examples in previous blogs about this summer’s extended transit disputes, when bus drivers also rejected a concessionary contract twice, workers in the same union as the train operators, the Amalgamated Transit Union.

There is talk of yet another strike to defend the contract the bosses want to renege on.  Already, in the mass media, both print and television, the bosses are blaming the workers and getting members of the public to stir up anti-union sentiment.  "I've always thought it was strange that they can strike like this," one BART rider was quoted in the Chronicle as saying, "It throws everything into chaos and everyone doesn't know what they're going to do." Others have made similar statements on television and they should be ashamed of themselves. Of course, the bosses’ media is very selective when it comes to these matters. 

Well, I'm very happy that generations of workers before me were prepared to sacrifice and introduce a little chaos in to the bosses’ profit world, a strike is disruptive, it's true, but that's how progress is made. I am grateful to all those millions who fought for unemployment insurance, the right to sick leave; the right for ordinary workers to sit on a jury free of property qualifications. Thanks to the black youth that fought the state and racists in the Jim Crow south and thanks to our ancestors for winning us the right to form an organization to defend our material interests.

I suggest the reader do a little research and compare benefits workers in other capitalist economies receive.  Workers in the US are among the bottom of the list in practically all categories. The 1%’s politicians in the Democratic and Republican parties will be moving to bar BART workers from striking in the future, they will be working on that in the years ahead.  Getting six days paid leave to care for sick loved one’s is a minor expense compared to their predatory wars and a great victory in this age of defeats; it should be championed. Those who oppose it claiming there is no money, are taking the side of those who place profits above human needs. It should be built on and the defined benefit pensions and public sector security absent in the private should be extended to all workers. Health care, education, leisure time, public services, these should all be expanded to all American workers.

While the gains that could have been made this summer weren’t, the bosses never had an easy time of it; even the Union officialdom could not throw in the towel so easily. In Seattle, Boeing workers are not making it so easy either.  All across the country there is definitely a shift in the mood as workers both on the job, in the communities and in the electoral plane are fighting back as the election of Kshawa Sawant, an open socialist to Seattle City Council shows.

The logjam is beginning to clear a little. We have to raise our expectations.

BART workers finally worn down, accept a deal.

Left: If we inconvenience other workers like this which is what a work stoppage can do, we have to have something on the table for them which means demanding what we need not what the 1% wants. We have to draw them in to the struggle, our struggle is their struggle and we can all gain from it. The labor hierarchy’s strategy is damage control, a very narrow, defensive strategy aimed at easing the pain a bit, keeping their members paying dues; we can’t win like that.  We must go on the offensive and that means using organized labor’s economic power to fight for social and community issues, issues that affect all of us.

 by Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

"Brethren we conjure you...not to believe a word of what is being said about your interests and those of your employers being the same. Your interests and theirs are in a nature of things, hostile and irreconcilable.  Then do not look to them for relief...Our salvation must, through the blessing of God, come from ourselves.  It is useless to expect it from those whom our labor’s enrich." *

 Members of SEIU 1021 and ATU 1555, workers at the Bay Area Rapid Transit System (BART) here in the Bay Area overwhelmingly ratified a new contract yesterday. After taking workers out on strike twice, calling the first one off after four and a half days without a vote of the membership and the second one after four days when scabs working on the tracks were killed by another one learning how to operate a train, the bosses got their concessionary contract.

SEIU which represents station agents voted to accept the offer by an 88% majority and ATU representing the train operators supported the contract by 85% to 15%, according to reports in the mass media. I am not aware if station agent, George Figueroa, fired for his union activity, was reinstated as part of the deal.  For those of us that have been involved in strikes, amnesty for those fired or victimized for defending our livelihoods is a life and death decision for going back to work.

The first strike revealed the tremendous power workers have when we withdraw our Labor power.  The bosses throughout the Bay Area felt this power as their employees were unable to get to work on time, or didn’t make it at all; this hurts profits.  When the class struggle breaks in to the open like this, the true nature of society is exposed.  Throughout this period, BART workers were attacked in the media, but after the first strike was called off and Jerry Brown, California’s governor intervened, first with a panel of enquiry and when that couldn’t wring concessions form the unions, with a 60 day cooling off period which was imposed by the courts; the bosses’ intensified their assault.

The mass media went on the offensive.  BART workers’ earnings were inflated and all their working conditions were held up as exemplary in one way or another.  They are greedy, lazy, selfish; you name it. BART workers are public sector workers and the assault on them is part of the generalized offensive against the public sector unions after years of decimating unionization, wages and benefits in private industry.  Auto workers, once the benchmark for entry in to what we call here in the US, the “Middle Class have seen their benefits slashed and wages cut in half.  Less than 7% of private industry workers are unionized compared to around 35% for public employees.  Our benefits are generally better and our workplaces somewhat less competitive, more secure and humane.  The capitalist class has to change this situation.

 “Everybody’s having to make some sacrifices in this economy, but BART workers refuse to do so, they’re greedy and selfish” this was the tone that was set and they pounded away at it for months, BART workers want the rest of us to sacrifice but not them.  By the time the second strike occurred, the public had been saturated with anti-BART worker and anti-union propaganda. This got an echo among the working public especially lower waged workers who often feel that unions only care about our own members, something that has merit to it although these days, the heads of organized Labor always approach negotiations with a defensive and concessionary strategy.  That many people still supported the strikers despite the bosses’ propaganda war, shows how pro-union/worker sentiment, coupled with lingering anger after years of cutbacks and concessions in our workplaces and communities as the rich get even richer is still alive and kicking. But this offensive had its intended effect. Many workers with less benefits and lower pay than BART workers were inconvenienced financially and personally and they too were worn down.

It was also successful because the union leadership had no answer to it.  From the outset, the officialdom made it clear that were willing to make a deal, that they did not want a strike, but the bosses were relentless, they were determined to force a strike and determined to have their way. Why would they not? The heads of organized Labor have refused to organize an offensive of our own, union members, the unorganized and our communities, youth and all victims of the market.  Strike after strike despite the heroism and dedication of the rank and file have gone down to defeat due to the concessionary policies of the leadership in some cases cooperating with them to fire militant local leaders.  The bosses don’t fear us. They were not going to allow these transit workers to halt the general offensive against all workers in the US.  Only the trade union hierarchy fears a victory more than the bosses.

The pressure on local union leaders from within the ranks must have been considerable for them to have gone this far. But workers cannot continue in this way.  We have to win these struggles or lose them.  There are numerous commentaries on this blog for the reader to get a general idea of its outlook.  The local officials all worked very hard I’m sure, but it is not hard work that produces results, it’s what one works hard at.  Despite making statements about the attacks on BART workers being an attack on all workers which it is as it lowers the bar further, there was no serious effort to draw all workers and our communities in to this struggle.  I mentioned to one worker that there should be demands on the table that are important to the riders that use BART, free transport for seniors, half fare for those on assistance or the unemployed for example; things like that. He said that they aren’t allowed to do that, they can’t bargain for the public an official told him.  They’re good at telling us what we can’t do. But it’s not up to anyone but us what we ask for at the table.  Even if the bosses ignore it we make an issue of it, we let them argue against it in the public arena and we organize among our class to win it.

The same with calling for a $15 or $20 an hour minimum wage more jobs, increased public services and mass transit through a massive infrastructure program.  Demanding that public sector wages, benefits and our defined benefit pension plans be expanded to include all workers these are issues that should have been brought up as well as a shorter workweek with no loss in pay for example.  People work overtime because we can’t make a living working 8 hours a day or because the bosses refuse to hire. You don’t have to look far to show where the money is for this.

There is nothing stopping the resources that organized Labor commands being used to organize mass meetings in our communities, to organize meetings on the job or at workplaces etc. The union leadership of SEIU and ATU should have called meetings of all members’ months in advance and prepared months in advance. A strike committee could have been formed that included members of our communities who could bring their issues to the table, small business that are bled dry by insurance companies, the medical industry and big landlords.  The entire labor movement should be involved in every dispute no matter what or where. The bosses use every resource at their command, the police, the courts, the media.  The only reason this didn’t occur, and it’s what has to occur if we are to stop this offensive of capital depriving our youth of a future, is that the heads of organized Labor refuse to do it. Yes, they refuse to do it because of perks and the obscene salaries some of them make along with a job for life, but the main reason is that they see no alternative to the market, they accept that concessions have to be made; they see the world through the 1%’’s glasses.

We cannot blame BART workers for accepting a deal that pushes them further backwards. They were worn down and after all, they see no way to win; that’s the main problem.  That is the lesson that the rank and file worker has to learn here, we can win, but cannot win unless we change the way we fight and we cannot change the way we fight if we don’t change the present leadership we have.  We must step up to the plate and make some history not simply be victims of it. People who read this blog must get tired of me saying it but we are in a war on two fronts, one against the bosses and one against the collaborative policies of the labor hierarchy.

The next phase in this battle which started even before the strikes took place, is to change the laws forbidding BART workers from striking. The labor tops will be looking to their Democratic Party friends to head that off, another disastrous strategy we have to abandon.

* 1840's appeal from New England laborers to their fellows to abandon the idea that the employers/capitalists would solve working people's problems.  Philip Foner History of the Labor Movement Vol. 1 p192

Bart Strike: Unions offer accepted in wake of worker deaths.

Source. SF Gate.com

by Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

"This has got to be the last time that this happens,"

These are the words of California's Lieutenant Governor, Gavin Newsom.  Newsom, is the dashing millionaire and former Mayor of San Francisco.   He has been regularly supported by the Union leadership despite attacking their members wages and benefits.

Newsom is referring to the end of the transit strike here in the San Francisco Bay Area after two workers inspecting the tracks were killed by a scab manager operating a train. The company admitted it was training managers to operate trains despite the Union warning of the dangers and trying to stop it. A day after the deaths, the Union leadership agreed to work rule changes that were preventing management from introducing new technology that "enshrined inefficiencies" according to the main stream media.

In the tragic deaths of these workers, (I assume they were scabbing on the strike though I don't know which union they belonged to if any at all) the union leadership has found a way to capitulate to the demands of the bosses although the new offer has to go to the membership for ratification. The unions involved are SEIU 1021 and ATU 1555. 

What the bosses call efficiency and what workers mean by efficiency are two different things.  It is not efficient to close schools, hospitals, state clinics or fire stations, or to savage the wages and working conditions of workers but the bosses do that as the crisis of US capitalism which is global in scope, is shifted on to the backs of workers, the middle class and the poorest among us. BART workers represent a somewhat better paid sector of the working class with relatively more humane working conditions and better benefits, the result of having a union and being public sector; they had to be brought down a peg.

This blog has covered this dispute over the past 6 months or so and it is clear to anyone following events that from the outset, the strategy of the labor leadership from the internationals on down was to fight this battle with one hand behind their backs, or more accurately, to ensure the dues paying members fought a battle with one hand behind their backs as top union officials and their army of staff rarely if ever have to live under the conditions of the contracts they recommend to their members.

They called off the first strike after four and a half days in July and were even appealing to the vicious anti-union Democratic governor of California, Jerry Brown to intervene. The ATU which represents other transit workers that drive buses and whose contracts were also up refused to wage united struggle against the bosses war on the living standards of their members.  SEIU 1021, which also represents BART workers and City of Oakland workers  refused to do the same.  The reader can go to the BART label to the right to follow these events as they occurred.

The usual scenario played out here.  The bosses use all of their forces against a local in these situations, the courts, the police and in this case a massive propaganda war was waged against BART workers in the local media.  The labor hierarchy has no answer to this.  Given their deafening silence in the face of this ideological assault, it is amazing that there is the support there was among the public.  Facts For Working People has argued all along as have other forces like the Transport Workers Solidarity Committee that simply saying this attack on BART workers is an attack on all of us is not enough.  There was no serious attempt at all to draw in the unorganized and the communities in which we live and work.  No demands were raised that would appeal to the public, free transportation for seniors, cheaper fares for the unemployed and those on assistance.  There was no serious public debate about the need for increased services, more jobs, for BART wages, benefits and health care to be expanded to all workers.

All the public sector locals that were free to strike during this period were dealing with the bosses in isolation yet we all have the same employer.  Mass meetings of transit workers alone should have been occurring months before the contracts expire and strike committees should have been set up that would include members of the public.   None of this was even seriously considered, just the opposite.

The labor officialdom refuses to wage a real fight because they basically agree with the employers that workers need to make concessions, just slightly less offensive ones than the bosses demand.
The pressure of the ranks in both BART and AC Transit the bus drivers union, both ATU locals, is what undoubtedly pushed the leadership to come this far, workers in both agencies have made major concessions up to now and were resisting more.  The AC transit drivers in ATU 192 rejected this offensive of the 1% voting down two concessionary contracts brought to them by their leaders.  In a tragic sense, these deaths which are the responsibility of BART management and the union buster they brought in to force this strike have given the union leadership a way out.  It remains to be seen if the members will accept the deal.

The importance of Newsom's statement above cannot be understated as the next step is to introduce legislation to make transit strikes illegal.  I was on strike in 1985 when it was illegal to do so but the California Supreme Court changed that as we walked the picket lines.  The public sector is under assault and until there is a serious movement from below that arises to drive back this offensive of the 1% the bosses will continue to take back all the gains we have won over the last 60 years.

BART/AC Transit Workers Unite Against Concessions

BART bosses respond. What is behind the lies and rhetoric?

As you can see from the video above, we are getting some indication of what the real issues are between BART management and the workers that operate the mass transit system here in the San Francisco Bay Area.  As someone who was a rank and file member of the negotiating team in my public sector workplace I know that what matters to the bosses, even public sector ones who are, after all, merely servants of Wall Street, is control of the workplace, in other words, the labor process.

What's clear from the video above is that what matters to the BART management is the business, how the transit system can be a successful business.  Yes they are liars, they have to be.  The speaker says that BART has no interest in "power games" that they simply want to "modernize the way they do business.",  and that they want to "operate more efficiently."

But BART is not a business, it is a public service.  I remember some years ago during a public sector strike in France.  A US journalist was over there as the strike was taking place and he interviewed a French public sector worker that worked for the Paris Metro.  The journalist pointed out that the strike was harmful as the public transit system was not making profit.

"Who cares whether it makes profit" the worker responded, "This is a public service, profit doesn't enter in to it."  We can learn a lot from the French

The reporter had no way of responding to this as he saw profit as an integral and inescapable part of life.

So the BART spokesperson in the video above sounds very democratic, "The union members deserve to vote" he says as a means of undermining the union leadership for calling a strike, or "leading" workers off the job as he puts it.

The transit district has to be "financially responsible" he says.  Well, what does that mean?  It means, BART has to make a profit and the union contract hinders, or is an obstacle to this. Wages must come down which is why they offer bonuses that don't increase base pay. But most importantly, the obstacles to making profits must be eliminated; work rules, safety guarantees, rules that increase a workers control over our life at work must be eliminated.

This mouthpiece of the bosses gives an example.  He says that maintenance workers that do inspections cannot, due to contractual limitations, "send information directly from IPads to the computers."  They are "required by the contract" he says, "to write hand written notes and hand those to a clerk."

He points out that this is 1950's technology and it "costs money and is inefficient" and is not the way to do business in this day and age.  I would not disagree with this.

But I want the workers that read this blog to think about these issues deeply because what this representative of the 1% says is not something workers, or socialists like me for that matter, would disagree with.  It depends though, on one's point of view, on ones class position.

The main issues here for a worker is that public services should not be dependent on the profit motive but on social need. And the speaker is correct that the language in the contract is obsolete, that it is much more efficient for a BART inspector to send information directly to a computer. The issue is what is "efficiency"? 

Capitalists control the workplace, even a public sector workplace. An increase in efficiency, like the sending of information straight to a computer rather than passing on hand written notes, is a good thing if we, as workers, control the workplace and the labor process but we don't. If we did, such an improvement in efficiency would result in more leisure time,  less time at work and more time with our families or doing whatever we want to do, even involving ourselves in the actual management of work

So we must understand that this dispute is political in nature.  In the workplace, there are only two major sources of power---the bosses, and the organized workers.  This dispute is all about reducing the power of the organized workers and increasing the power of the bosses, money is secondary.

We will never live in a truly democratic society until we control the labor process.  The process through which we produce the necessities of life and through which we provide all the means that allow us to live a fruitful and productive one. This means education, transportation, public health, housing, etc.

This is what the BART workers are defending and what we all need to understand.

Victory to the BART workers
No Concessions
No more give backs
Jobs for all
Health care for all
Education not incarceration
For a Bay Area wide  strike of all public sector workers and a public sector alliance.
End all predatory wars and occupations, bring the troops home

Production for social, need not corporate greed.

Support BART strikers; Spread the strike Fight to Win

A BART Strike Fact Sheet

The following was sent to Facts For Working People with a request that we share it with our readers. FFWP is sharing it for informational purposes only.

******************

Whether you like it or not, whether you care to admit or not, the 1% have declared war on the 99%. We are under attack on every front. Unions and Union workers are a prime target in this war. Because Unions are the only organizations in this country that are capable of organizing people from different backgrounds, races, ethnicities, cultures, religions for the single purpose of defending their rights. Unions also have a National and/or International reach. While most third party organizations are either local or irrelevant.

So it is vital for the 1%-ers to marginalize Unions. They’ve been at it for the past 30 years and they have honed their technique. In that context, the issue at BART, is about more than just raises, pensions and healthcare. It’s a matter of principle. It is about sustained attacks on Unions and Union workers. It’s about the 99% fighting back.

Whatever the outcome of the BART negotiations, it will have a direct effect on the rest of us. If they win their argument, it puts the rest of us, Union and non-Union alike, in a better position to demand better pay and better working conditions.

If the BART Unions are forced to take concessions it will embolden the 1%-ers and set a bad precedent. There are a number of negotiations coming up next year and they will be directly effected by it.

So BART workers deserve every ounce of support we can muster. They’re standing up not just for themselves, but for all of us.

Please pass this on to at least five people especially those who might be affected by the strike. Many thanks.

 BART Strike!

It’s the 1% vs the 99% … Again!

BART workers and their Unions are being forced into a strike which may take place as soon as Sunday at midnight. This will cause congestion on roadways and bridges of Bay Area. But while you’re sitting in heavy traffic and stewing, don’t curse the so called overpaid, lazy Union workers. Acquaint yourself with a few facts first. Of course you know, that you will not get actual facts from the corporate media, only melodrama!

Fact: For BART workers, a strike is a last resort. They are more than willing to sit down and negotiate. It is the Board of Directors who refuses to negotiate. The Board of directors has not made a new offer in the past two months.

Fact: Workers on strike do not get paid. Consequently they can not contribute to benefits such as healthcare. The Board and General Managers continue to get paid, regardless of how unwilling or incompetent they are at resolving labor issues.

Fact: BART’s General Manager Grace Crunican sits on the Board of directors of the “Bay Area Council”. A group of CEOs and managers dedicated to lowering wages and deteriorating working conditions for all workers. In short, to put profit before people.

Fact: BART Management has fired George Figueroa, the head of the strike team for ATU1555, in retaliation.

Fact: The Board has spent $400,000 to hire a consultant turned negotiator from a private corporation named Veolia Transportation Services. Thomas Hock was brought in through the back door in an underhanded way. He has a reputation for Union-busting. His general strategy is to push Unions into a strike, provoke public anger and frustration against them, forcing them into taking concessions and pay cuts. That is $400,000 not spent on safety measures and upgrades for the paying public.

Fact: The operations of AirBART, the shuttle service between BART’s Coliseum/Airport station and Oakland Airport has already been contracted out to Veolia Transportation Services. AirBART tickets are $3.00 per person. AC Transit Bus #73 to the Airport costs $2.10.

Fact: The highest paid BART worker was not a worker at all. She was BART's former

General Manager, Dorothy Dugger who received a salary of $419,000 without doing a single day's work in 2012. That is on top of $920,000 she was given by BART's Board of Directors and the $181,000 pension she draws. SHE IS NON-UNION!

Fact: After retirement, BART workers must live on pension alone. They will not be eligible for Social Security. The average public worker’s pension in California is $25,000 a year. Hardly a King’s ransom.

Fact: In 2009 BART’s Board of directors lied to the workers and misled them into signing away $100,000,000 in benefits and pay. BART workers have not had a raise in four years. BART’s latest offer is tantamount to a pay cut not a raise. Unions are asking for an actual raise. Not an imaginary one.

Fact: Part of the concessions the unions made in 2009 was a hiring freeze, that has been in effect for the past four years. Consequently, a great number of BART workers have been shorthanded and have had to put in unreasonable amounts of overtime to keep BART running. The Management and the Board, in a shameless Machiavellian maneuver have factored those overtime payments into the salary of BART workers in order to exaggerate and inflate the numbers and demonize the workers in the eyes of the public. And to pit worker against worker, those who use BART against those who provide the services.

The local media keeps regurgitating these figures without fact-checking or questioning them. Ironically both NY Times and The Nation put the average pay for BART workers up to $15,000 below what the local papers consistently claim.

The overtimes were caused by the arrogance and mismanagement of the Board. If they did not deceive the Unions and did not insist on a hiring freeze, they could have offered more job opportunities to the local communities, put more money into the local economies and the existing BART workers could have gone home and spent more time with their families.

The Management also neglects to mention that they themselves enjoy the most expensive and wasteful benefits. Free laptops, free Blackberrys, free Travel, wining, dining and general boondoggling at the expense of the taxpayers.

Fact: The Management also double counts vacations. One assumes that vacations are included in the base salary. But at BART, due to more creative accounting, it is calculated separately and added on as a “benefit”.

Fact: Since 2009, BART employee injuries have risen by 43%. In the past year alone the assault on station agents has risen from 9% to 31%. This statistic includes homicide and rape. Workers are asking for safety measures such as more, better lighting and installation of bullet proof glass. Yet the BART Board of directors refuses to spend a single penny to ensure the survival of its workers and the safety of the public.

Fact: BART revenues have risen to above 718,000,000. Its sales tax revenue has jumped to 207,000,000. (Yes that’s money coming out of your pocket) It currently has 125,000,000 in surplus. Yet the Board is unwilling to spend a penny of it in the community or for the community.

The privatization sharks have smelled surplus and are circling. Some Union activists believe that the marginalization of Unions and workers is a step towards future privatization of BART.

Many fear the implementation of the “Wisconsin” labor practices. Governor Brown by his unnecessary involvement has signaled that he will ride the wave of public anger and frustration to introduce legislation which will forbid public workers from going on strike. Such legislations already exist in 35 other states. Workers who defy the law and go on strike can be fined or spend up to one year in prison. In California the only state law prohibiting public workers from striking applies to Firefighters. In the city of San Francisco public workers including Muni are prohibited to strike.

So you see, the future Gridlocks have been brought to you by the members of the BART’s Board of Directors.

The six figure 1%-ers!

Not the five figure 99%, working stiffs like you.

Be sure to fully express your gratitude next election year.

Send your “love” to:

Gail Murray, Joel Keller, Rebecca Saltzman, Robert Raburn

John McPartland, Thomas Blalock, Zakhary Mallett

James Fang. Tom Radulovich

And let’s not forget the General Manager, the lovely Ms. Crunican: The woman who speaks with a forked tongue.

While us working class people keep our tongues firmly imbedded in our cheeks!

by https://www.facebook.com/bayarealightbrigade