Pain Train: BART, Drivers' Union Fail to Agree on 'Last, Best and Final Offer'

http://world.nycsubway.org

Did we just miss the last, best, and final train?

​The other day we joked about how, come Labor Day weekend, it might take a Dunkirk-like flotilla of small boats to cross the Bay.

Not so funny anymore!

With the Bay Bridge scheduled to be closed for construction, BART had announced plans to run for 24 hours a day over that weekend (i.e. the Drunken Express). Now the system may soon run 24 fewer hours a day as a looming strike is looking more realistic than ever.

BART spokesman Linton Johnson reported that system negotiators and representatives of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555 parted ways at around 9:45 last night after the union spurned management's "Last, Best and Final Offer." BART's board of directors will meet today at 11 a.m. to assess the situation and potentially impose the terms of the rejected contract on the ATU and BART's other unions. ATU President Jesse Hunt has repeatedly said this would trigger a strike -- and though BART's two other major unions adopted this contract,  they'd strike, too. This is what they're talking about when they say "solidarity, brother."

Johnson claims that management and the union's numbers could have meshed if only the ATU would have agreed to "eliminating enough wasteful work rules that would result in the elimination of just five station agent positions through attrition -- not layoffs." Hunt hasn't yet returned our call (hey, it's early).

Hunt and other union heads have repeatedly said that riders would be given fair warning of a strike -- so the notion of BART management imposing terms this morning and drivers walking off the job moments later is, hopefully, far-fetched. How much warning constitutes "fair warning" has never truly been determined, though.

Our advice to Bay Area commuters: Wear comfortable shoes.