by John Logan, San Francisco State University
How did the BART dispute ever reach this point?
For several weeks now, BART management has mounted a
sophisticated PR campaign, stating that its workers are overpaid and
unreasonable. But its evidence on employee pay and benefits has been
misleading at best; its estimates of average pay include many highly
paid managers, thus exaggerating significantly the pay of frontline
employees. Likewise, management's statements on employee contributions
to health benefits have failed to account for the significant
out-of-pocket expenses incurred by many BART employees.
Denigrating your workers in the media may be a winning strategy
in the battle for public opinion, but it's a foolhardy one for senior
management running an organization whose success depends so heavily on
employee commitment and flexibility.
This week's public hearing in Oakland before Governor Brown's
three-member investigative panel provided an entirely different version
of events from BART's media campaign. During several hours of testimony,
union witnesses described in great detail BART management's "Comedy of
Errors" bargaining style. If their account is accurate -- and BART did
not dispute the specific allegations, though it did add a couple of its
own -- this behavior provides almost a textbook example of 'surface
bargaining,' i.e., going through the motions of negotiating with no
intention of reaching an agreement.
Without exception, moreover, union
officials stated that this year's BART negotiations were not only the
worst ever at BART, but the worst they had ever seen in several decades
in the labor movement.
Rather than make a legitimate effort to negotiate a settlement,
management has repeatedly employed delaying tactics; it started
negotiations in mid-May, rather than in April, as the union had
requested; it has engaged in the arbitrary scheduling of meetings; its
chief negotiator Tom Hock was, incredibly, unavailable for one-third of
the 30-day contract extension period after the July strike; and over the
last weekend, management took almost 12 hours to respond to unions' pay
and benefit proposal. During those critical final hours, management
was, unbeknown to the unions, writing to the Governor to request a
60-day cooling off period, rather than attempting to reach a settlement.
While accusing the unions of excessive contract demands, BART
management has made unreasonable and unrealistic bargaining demands of
its own: its initial pay and benefits proposal would have meant a 12%
cut in real terms for employees who have not had a raise for the past 4
years. At the tail end of bargaining over the weekend, the unions
reported that management's last offer was worse than its previous one.
Moreover, management has repeatedly negotiated through the media -- even
continuing to do so during an agreed-upon gag order -- rather than
bargain face-to-face with its unions.
But it doesn't need to be this way. It is instructive to compare
the train wreck of contract negotiations at BART with the successful
negotiations that just concluded at AC Transit, which involved similar
pay and benefits challenges. Despite facing contentious issues, AC
Transit management and its union reached an agreement without strikes,
contract extensions or cooling-off periods. They sat down together,
negotiated in good faith, and got the job done.
Contract negotiations are rarely easy -- especially in an
environment of fiscal austerity -- but the AC Transit experience
demonstrates that when management and workers are committed to an
equitable and sustainable outcome, disparate interests can reach
agreement through commonsense compromise. The fundamental obstacle to a
similar outcome at BART is that management has neither negotiated in
good faith nor shown a genuine desire to avoid a strike. Under the
guidance of its chief negotiator Tom Hock -- who is notorious for
driving down wages and benefits, as well as driving labor disputes to
strikes -- management has steered negotiations almost unstoppably
towards the current stalemate.
It's certainly possible that Governor Brown will seek a sixty-day
cooling off period come Monday, but it should not have come to this.
Settling this dispute will require flexibility and compromise on both
sides. In order for that to happen, however, BART management must first
end its media campaign, sit down with its unions, and negotiate in good
faith.
California Labor Federation :: End This BART Dispute Now
No comments:
Post a Comment