For perspective on salaries, consider a family of four living in the Bay Area needs roughly $74,341 a year
to get by compared to $62,517 in 2008. BART officials have released
inflated salary figures of BART train operators and station agents,
adding fuel to the greedy workers myth. The officials claim these workers make an average of $71,000 annually when in fact the SF Examiner reports they make a maximum of $62,000 annually.
The typical media consumer would have to do a lot of digging in order
to find the union's demands because the media is presenting the story
as Greedy Workers Versus Hardworking Americans.
Here's just a sample of some headlines:
"BART strike has transit, commuters scrambling," "BART Strike Hits Commuters; No Word On Service Resumption," "BART strike: Commuters find creative ways to get to work," "BART strike: What are my commute options?"
In all of these instances, the striking workers are presented as a nefarious force fixated on disrupting other workers' commute for…some reason. Probably greedy motives. Usually, these kinds of articles open with a profile of some poor unsuspecting sucker who can't figure out how they're going to get to and from work because of the evil BART employees.
Here's the LA Times showing how it's done:
Read more: BART Strike: Another Instance of Media Portraying Workers as Greedy | The Nation http://www.thenation.com/blog/175063/bart-strike-another-instance-media-portraying-workers-greedy#ixzz2Xu3mdgJM
Follow us: @thenation on Twitter | TheNationMagazine on Facebook
Here's just a sample of some headlines:
"BART strike has transit, commuters scrambling," "BART Strike Hits Commuters; No Word On Service Resumption," "BART strike: Commuters find creative ways to get to work," "BART strike: What are my commute options?"
In all of these instances, the striking workers are presented as a nefarious force fixated on disrupting other workers' commute for…some reason. Probably greedy motives. Usually, these kinds of articles open with a profile of some poor unsuspecting sucker who can't figure out how they're going to get to and from work because of the evil BART employees.
Here's the LA Times showing how it's done:
Wayne Phillips did everything but swim as he struggled to get to his tech job in this city's Financial District on Monday morning.Oh no! Poor Wayne! The reader is left feeling angry at those terrible BART workers who are on strike for…some reason. Probably for more gold chalices.
His usual smooth ride on a Bay Area Rapid Transit train was derailed by the system's first strike in 16 years. So Phillips drove from the East Bay city of Concord to Oakland. He stood in a "quarter-mile-long" line for a ferry. Then he gave up and jumped on his own boat, a 30-foot Bayliner named Lovin' Life.
Read more: BART Strike: Another Instance of Media Portraying Workers as Greedy | The Nation http://www.thenation.com/blog/175063/bart-strike-another-instance-media-portraying-workers-greedy#ixzz2Xu3mdgJM
Follow us: @thenation on Twitter | TheNationMagazine on Facebook
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