BART Union Approves Contract; Workers, Management Go Back To Talking Trash *Without* Specter of Crippling Strike

​The union for BART's drivers and station agents blamed the system's financial woes on George W. Bush and greedy management while the system pointed the finger at well-compensated, overtime-hoarding employees.

And the riding public can offer a Mercutio-like pox on both their houses while dozing off on the Pittsburg-Bay Point train, because the union-management sniping is no longer being made with the prospect of a disastrous rail strike hanging in the balance. Yesterday around 80 percent of the holdout Amalgamated Transit Union Local No. 1555 ratified the contract hammered out hours before that strike would have commenced on Aug. 16, staving off the Bay Area's last, best chance to experience gridlock woes that would have landed us on the front page of the New York Times.

Before slipping out of the public eye until the next contract go-round, ATU President Jesse Hunt had some harsh words for BART management -- after the contract was ratified.

BART's "deficit was caused by eight years of Republican policies in Washington, and outlandish greed on Wall Street that has bankrupted our country and put the burden squarely onto the shoulders of ordinary working Americans," he wrote on the union's Web site. "It is a deficit caused by a Republican Governor and an extremist Republican minority in Sacramento whose policies have crippled California and decimated our state's educational system, social services, public transportation and more.

"The disastrous consequences of these economic policies were exploited by BART executives, who scapegoated workers and whose official spokesperson dangerously incited public anger and violence against members of our union."

BART -- and spokesman Linton Johnson, whose name Hunt apparently could not bring himself to utter -- did indeed play hardball (Johnson asked BART riders to implore to their "favorite" train operators not to strike). Without excusing any managerial wastefulness, however, much of the public anger stemmed from the fact that well-paid BART drivers and station agents rejected -- and not just once -- offers that the public perceived as relatively generous for a cash-strapped system in the midst of a recession. The ATU soundly rejected contracts BART's other unions overwhelmingly approved.

While Hunt may see a vast, right-wing conspiracy, this perception problem isn't very hard to understand -- or for BART to subtly exploit. Driving a train these days is not the physical task it was in the era when shoveling coal or outracing bands of Comanches was par for the course. It's also a good bet BART drivers (or station agents) out-earn most of the people riding the system. And Hunt's union brethren were concerned about the possibility of wage-freezes when most people are happy to earn wages, period.  

But, then, these are yesterday's battles. BART's board of directors is anticipated to put the final stamp of approval on this contract during its September meeting. The real question, as we've noted before, is will ridership blame drivers or management for the inevitable fare hikes? If one side blames well-compensated workers who fought managment's efforts to reign in overtime and the other blames George W. Bush -- we know where we'd put our money.