{"id":48142,"date":"2013-07-05T21:05:21","date_gmt":"2013-07-05T20:05:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/bart-strike-comes-to-an-end-for-now\/48142\/"},"modified":"2013-07-05T21:05:21","modified_gmt":"2013-07-05T20:05:21","slug":"bart-strike-comes-to-an-end-for-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/bart-strike-comes-to-an-end-for-now\/","title":{"rendered":"BART Strike Comes to an End For Now"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo Credit: WikiMedia Commons\/ShakataGaNai<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

July 5, 2013<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
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The BART strike will come to an end on Friday at 3 p.m. after the transit agency and unions agreed to extend the current contract to have 30 more days of negotiation. According to the San Francisco Chronicle<\/em><\/a>, state Labor Secretary Marty Morgenstern and state mediators made the request, as there was still much negotiation to do. The Chronicle <\/em>wrote that: \u201cWhen asked how many contract issues remain to be resolved, Morgenstern could only\u00a0chuckle. \u2018I don’t have that much time,\u2019 he\u00a0said.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Chronicle <\/em>also reported that Morgenstern thanked the unions for ending their strike for now, stating: “It’s not easy to come back off a strike without a contract.” <\/p>\n

Negotiations between the two parties took place for nine hours Tuesday night, 10 hours Wednesday and 12 hours Thursday. However, it appears that not much progress was made in the course of these negotiations. <\/p>\n

Antonette Bryant, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555, which represents BART\u2019s train operators and station agents, told the Chronicle<\/em>, “The last week has been a complete waste of time \u2026 We’re still waiting for BART to respond to a proposal we made last\u00a0Sunday.” <\/p>\n

Pete Castelli, executive director of the Service Employees International Union Local 1021, which represent BART\u2019s mechanics, maintenance workers and professional staff, told the Chronicle, <\/em>“They keep bringing up the small stuff, but we’re not even talking about the main issues.\u201d <\/p>\n

He also raised concerns that BART management has been working with anti-labor consultants and hopes to impose a contract on the BART workers. This imposition can occur if negotiations are at a stalemate. The employer, then, can make its \u201clast, best and final offer\u201d which striking workers must accept when they decide to come off strike. <\/p>\n

According to the Chronicle, <\/em>while BART management has denied these motivations, they had scheduled, then canceled, two board meetings this week, which included the agenda item, “unilateral implementation of certain terms and conditions of employment for employees.” A spokeswoman said the item was simply \u201cprocedural.\u201d <\/p>\n

Four years ago, however, a contract was imposed on BART workers with the ATU after the union rejected their final offer. <\/p>\n

While the current contract will be extended until Aug. 4, the new contract will be retroactive to July 1. Unions head back to the bargaining table on Monday. <\/p>\n

For more information on the strike and workers\u2019 demands, check out \u201c 7 Key Things You Need to Know About the BART Strike in California<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

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Alyssa Figueroa is an associate editor at AlterNet. Follow her on Twitter @alyssa_fig<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Republished with permission from: AlterNet<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo Credit: WikiMedia Commons\/ShakataGaNai July 5, 2013 \u00a0| Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. The BART strike will come to an end on Friday at 3 p.m. after the transit agency and unions agreed to extend the current contract to have 30 more days […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-48142","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48142\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}