The breakthrough came after the worker deaths in Walnut Creek on Saturday. By Sunday, union leaders said they were ready to make concessions. By Monday, both sides agreed to sit down and a deal was struck in time to get limited train service running for the Tuesday morning commute.
This is a turning point for BART workers who are now on strike again. It's time for labor and community to come together to support them.
Those at the top have had it too good for too long at our expense.
Negotiations between BART and Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555 and Service Employees International Union Local 1021 began months ago, but the two sides remained tens of millions of dollars apart on wages, pensions and health care benefits last week.
"You hire a union buster, management hides behind this person, you force the workers to strike, you take a hardball/hard line at the table and bank that you will break the union.”
"Union struggles reflect on all jobs," said Jane Smith, 30, a data scientist from San Francisco. "Unions won the struggle for a 40-hour workweek, and we are all benefiting from that still. Unions also fight for higher wages, which translate to higher wages for all Americans." The BART strike is a symptom of "the income and wealth inequality that is plaguing our nation," she said. "I can't believe that people are missing the point."
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