On July 1, the unionized employees of BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) went out on what became a four and a half day strike. Despite the melodramatic tone of the media\u2013practically depicting these transit workers as a group of ungrateful renegades\u2013it was the first shutdown of BART since 1997.<\/p>\n
Although no agreement was reached, the union (Service Employees International Union, Local 1021 and Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 1555) willingly returned to work, willingly extended the existing contract (which had expired) for 30 days, and promised to continue to bargaining in good faith.<\/p>\n
In the absence of a \u201clive\u201d contract, the union was not legally required to give advance notification of a strike. But in order to ensure an orderly shutdown, they thoughtfully did so anyway. If the transit union were half as militant as suggested, they would have pulled the plug without notice, and then rejoiced in the chaos that ensued. But they didn\u2019t do that.<\/p>\n
When I was a union negotiator, pulling the plug without notice was exactly what we did. We\u2019d bargained for more than four months and gotten nowhere. While our strike was not totally unexpected (after all, management was aware the contract had expired), suddenly hearing machinery being shut down and seeing workers march off the job definitely got their attention. But the transit union didn\u2019t do that. They played it courteously.<\/p>\n
As for the sticking points in BART negotiations, the issues are pretty much standard boilerplate agenda items (e.g., pay raises, job security, protection of medical benefits, etc.), along with some miscellaneous safety concerns (e.g., requesting thicker glass for ticket offices in high crime areas). Nothing unreasonable, nothing unexpected, nothing from out of left field.<\/p>\n
One thing is clear during a strike: You can\u2019t believe anything you read in the mainstream media. Not only are reporters too gullible or lazy to check out management propaganda, they seem to take perverse pride in automatically siding with the company against the union, even when they themselves belong to a labor union.<\/p>\n
On the first day of our 57-day strike, some years ago, local TV showed up to interview our negotiators. It was a three-person crew: a photogenic woman reporter, a camera guy, and a sound guy. While the woman was interviewing our spokesman, the two guys casually asked why we struck. We told them what the issues were. They wished us luck, bumped fists, and exchanged solidarity handshakes with us. Power to the people!<\/p>\n
But that evening, in addition to showing the interview with our spokesman, they ran footage of an interview with \u201cBetty,\u201d an hourly worker we weren\u2019t aware had been interviewed. They must have caught her at the back picket line. I knew Betty. She was a smart, efficient worker. But because she had a mic and a camera jammed in her face, and an aggressive, sharp-eyed reporter peppering her with questions, she was extremely nervous. Who wouldn\u2019t be?<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, the reporter got Betty to say some things that made her sound not only woefully ignorant, but made her sound as if she were being held captive. When Betty was asked what the main issues were, she said she didn\u2019t know. This after weekly updates posted by the bargaining board!! Betty said she didn\u2019t know why we were on strike, but that she\u2019d been told to stand picket.<\/p>\n
My heart sank when I saw that interview. This bright, presentable woman came off as some sort of proletarian automaton. \u201cYes, comrade. I will do as commanded.\u201d When our chief negotiator, an officer with the International old enough to be our dad, heard about the interview, he went absolutely ape-shit. He actually tried to blame us for it, arguing that we were responsible for educating the membership. It was a very bad scene.<\/p>\n
The local newspapers were worse. They fell for the oldest trick in the book, allowing the company to add up every dollar in compensation (including wages, health insurance, pension, overtime pay, vacation pay, holiday pay, meetings, safety shoes, cafeteria chits, you name it), and then present it in the form of an hourly wage, making it sound like we were making $75 per hour. The media ate it up.<\/p>\n
The same thing is happening with the BART strike. Management is purposely inflating the union\u2019s package and poor-mouthing its own predicament, hoping to crush the union by appealing to the public\u2019s jealousy and resentment.<\/p>\n
The LA Times<\/i> (July 6) asked a regular BART rider what she thought of the strike. Having heard the union was resisting increases in healthcare premiums, and speaking of her own job, she said, \u201cWe don\u2019t even have healthcare benefits.\u201d Ah, yes, another case of the media taking the whip to us, urging us on in our race to the bottom.<\/p>\n
David Macaray<\/strong>, an LA playwright and author (\u201cIt\u2019s Never Been Easy: Essays on Modern Labor\u201d 2nd<\/sup>\u00a0edition), was a former union rep. \u00a0Dmacaray@earthlink.net<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n