Officials Mediate to Avert Paralyzing BART Strike

Just 24 hours before a public transportation strike threatened to cripple the San Francisco Bay Area, negotiators early Tuesday reached a tentative agreement to keep the Bay Area Rapid Transit system running.

The key, according to BART and union officials, was the last-minute intervention of a passel of politicians, from under-the-radar local legislators to the celebrity mayors of San Francisco and Oakland.

Acting as mediators, the elected officials shuttled between the transit district and the unions at BART headquarters in Oakland, eventually helping to negotiate a tentative contract with a raise worth more than 22% over four years. BART was offering 18.5% over four years in recent rounds; the two unions involved were asking 20.5% over three years. Union members must still vote on the proposal.

More than 325,000 riders pack onto the rapid rail system’s 95 miles of track each day. Nearly half are commuting to work. Nearly half would otherwise have to traverse the five slim lanes of the already-jammed Bay Bridge between San Francisco and Oakland during peak driving hours.

Officials Worked Through Labor Day

So it’s little wonder that worried officials have been warning of a transportation Armageddon--accompanied by throat-closing pollution levels--as the threat of a strike loomed over the Labor Day weekend.

And it’s also little wonder that Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown and five other Bay Area elected officials willingly gave up 10 free hours on Labor Day to help draft the tentative agreement, when most others were off celebrating the working man and woman.

Members of the union negotiating team “are extremely pleased with the proposal” that was struck late Monday, said Larry Hendel, East Bay director for Local 790 of the Service Employees International Union, one of two unions poised to strike. “We still need to work out the fine print, but it has avoided a strike. It’s one of the best packages we’ve seen.”

The transit district had been in unsuccessful contract talks with members of the SEIU and local 1555 of the Amalgamated Transit Union since March 19 over wages and other benefits for about 2,500 mechanics, train operators, janitors and clerical workers, among others.

Negotiations had gone into high gear in the last week or so, because a state-ordered cooling-off period was scheduled to end at midnight Tuesday. At the same time, Bay Area cities and transportation agencies were scrambling to figure out how to ameliorate the possible effects of a BART strike.

Going into the Labor Day weekend, a strike appeared imminent as negotiators reached an impasse over the key issue of money. Originally, BART had offered workers an 11.5% raise over four years. The unions initially had demanded about 26.5% over three years.

By the weekend, both sides had come a bit closer together, with BART offering an 18.5% raise over four years and the unions easing their demands to a 20.5% raise over three years. Still, it was not close enough; on Saturday night, a 72-hour strike notice was issued.

On Monday, the bulk of the politicians arrived. Shuttling between the aggrieved parties starting about 3 p.m., they helped draft the final deal and remind everyone involved about the economic and political stakes of a possible strike.

Had the unions begun the strike at midnight Tuesday, there would have been great “public damage,” said Ignacio De La Fuente, president of the Oakland City Council and one of seven politicians involved in the negotiations. The strike would affect not just commuters, he said, but also hurt “public support for necessary expansion and improvement of the system.”

A similar strike in 1997 lasted six days and wrought havoc in the region, with frustrated workers stuck in interminable traffic jams, buses choked with angry people who would otherwise have traveled by BART and some employees throwing up their hands and taking vacation instead of braving the congestion.

“In 1997, it practically brought the Bay Area to a standstill,” said BART spokesman Mike Healy, who expressed relief Tuesday over the proposed agreement. “BART today is carrying many more passengers than it was then. It would even be worse.”

Rank and File Must Ratify Pact

The proposal was being formalized Tuesday and has yet to be presented to the rank and file, who will probably vote on it as early as Monday. Details of the proposal have not been released, although the SEIU’s Hendel said the contract calls for a raise of more than 22% over four years. BART officials and other negotiators would not comment.

Both sides praised the elected officials for their efforts. Without them, BART and the unions said, a strike probably would have been called.

“These people all really put in some long, hard hours to get this thing worked out,” Healy said Tuesday. “They were like mediators, moving back and forth on both sides. . . . They brought a dynamic to the process that accelerated it to the point that we got a tentative framework for the agreement early this morning.”

Currently, train operators earn a maximum of about $48,000 a year. The district had argued that the unions’ demands could lead to an increase in fares and hurt BART customers.

“BART’s revenues have exceeded their projections every year in the last four since our last contract,” said Hendel. “So it’s an incredibly prosperous and successful system. The workers who make it go deserve a compensation package commensurate with BART’s success, one that allows them to continue to live in the Bay Area, which has probably the highest cost of living in the country.”

A third union representing about 270 supervisory and middle-management employees is in stalled contract negotiations with BART and threatening to strike.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is scheduled to be in court today, when the state attorney general will ask for a 60-day cooling-off period.