The BART Board of Directors on Thursday ratified tentative agreements to existing labor contracts that will give wage increases to BART workers, BART officials said.
The wage increases will total 10.5 percent over three years for American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Amalgamated Transit Union and Service Employees International Union and non-represent employees and 10.5 percent over four years for the agency’s police unions, BART officials said.
The total four-year cost of the wage increases for BART’s operating budget is expected to be $123.8 million, and the four-year capital budget costs, which are primarily reimbursable from capital projects and other sources outside of the operating budget, are expected to be $42.2 million, officials said.
The last general wage increase for BART employees was in July 2020, though higher-level managers and executive staff didn’t receive a raise, transit agency officials said.
In 2020, most employees received a 2.75 percent increase. BART police received a wage increase in July 2021.
BART officials said not increasing wages would have compounded current staffing challenges in a tight labor market and would have potentially impacted service.
No raise would not have impacted any service or affected the labor market. Bart employees don’t leave once hired unless fired. They all know they are already overpaid and aren’t going to leave the job for “someplace better”. And if they do then see ya. Lowers your payroll and then hire someone new for less. Isn’t ridership down already anyway, so you don’t need as many employees. Plus everything is going automated.
+1
Government employees get richer while the peasants are heading to the food lines and living in tents.
Absolute insanity.
+2
They didn’t lay people off during the pandemic when ridership dropped to record lows. They don’t even have full ridership now…where are they getting the money to give our raises?
the most mismanaged and inconveinant municipality in America
To be clear, seven of nine board directors ratified these contracts. I voted no.
Why? Short answer: It was fiscally irresponsible of this board to amend existing 2021 labor contracts only one year into the three-year contracts to provide this level of wage increases, (at a cost of $166M over next 4 years) without a robust bargaining process to change the most onerous and costly work rules that create so much inefficiency and overtime in the system.
BART is now carrying 35% of the passengers it once carried pre-pandemic, but is running more trains and more service than in 2019. The billions of federal stimulus funding from taxpayers across America was projected to dry up by December of 2025. With these contract changes, the fiscal cliff moves about 6 months closer to June of 2025.
I am very sympathetic to the workers, and the fact that there have been no raises in the last year for some and future raises are unlikely for 2-3 years under the current contracts from 2021. We should be talking about how to give our workers raises given the inflationary times we’re in and about employee retention and attraction.
We should also be talking about running the system far more efficiently with lower labor costs, which now consume 62% of the $2.4B annual budget. We should be assuring the taxpayers and riders paying for this system that we are serious about advancing new efficiencies of how we operate for the future.
But before we, as a board, replace the 2021 bargained wage provisions, we should have been negotiating the most expensive and inefficient parts of our labor contracts, including all aspects: wages, benefits, worker safety and particularly the work rules that lead to excessive overtime costs, operational inefficiencies, and costs overruns. Those items should be collectively bargained all at once. Gives and takes. That’s how it should be done, but it wasn’t IMHO.
No comp and benefit surveys were done. All of this was done behind closed doors until the final vote last Thursday.
The analysis and comparative data presented has not been sufficient to convince me that the amended agreements are the best we can do for the workers, the taxpayers, the riders, and the recovery of the Bay Area.
There is a longer answer, but this should suffice for now.
I see lots of “shoulds”….but actions speak louder than words .
And I see almost zero action by the board to effectively and efficiently operate a mass transit system. I’m willing to bet that NONE of the BART board regularly ride the system. And I’ll bet that that none of them have taken the lazy-a$$ employees to task for their attitudes and failure to address gate jumpers and otherwise control labor costs.
Coulda, woulda, shoulda….
Failure in a responsible position precludes being hired/voted in for a similar position in another agency.
Get my drift? It’s easy to point fingers and blame others, but you have not taken a public stand and castigated the rest of the board for their lack of transparency or their actions.
Hi Debora: I’m sure you have forgotten me but we talked a long time ago at the Orinda station about BART and you convinced me you really care, you are trying to make it a better system and you actually have a good professional background. The problem as I see it is you are the only one qualified to be on the BART Board out of the actual members. The others seem to have been elected by some kind of popularity contest appealing to bicycle activists and social justice. I’ve taken the vastly superior Washington DC metro and its Board at the time had members with lifetime experience in railroads and the Department of Transportation and actual jobs that qualified them to be there. We have bicycle activists who we are told don’t even use the system and other such useless individuals. I do disagree with your support of increasing the compensation of BART employees because I believe their benefits and pensions are ridiculously better than those of us who ride the trains, plus it is difficult to be sympathetic to BART employees due to their behavior.
To do List
Most of the employees had to come into work during the pandemic and were not afforded work from home to maintain the system. Engineers and Staff were able to make significant improvements to the system and utilize the time when where were less passengers to catch up on maintenance. So while most of the working riders (public) were home BART and other agencies were still at work daily thought the pandemic, working under conditions that were still new to the country for safety under the pandemic.
So it is unfair to judge BART based on knowledge that the public is not aware of and no knowledge of its daily operations. Most management are not making the industry average that Private sector jobs pay for the same education and skill set.
d man,
we judge BART based on what we see and experience…
BART is a mess
Of course they are. That’s what the fair and parking raising cost are for.
Don’t the janitors make 100k a year already?
How about stopping thugs from jumping the fare gates??? Oh yeah, that
would be “RACIST”.
It must be nice to vote yourself a raise!!!!
Aren’t they selling parking lots(which was paid for with tax payer money) to developers to build their cluster villages?
Yes ridership is down by two thirds losing money so what do they do give everyone an increase so they can keep up with one third of the work. It is time to privatize BART.
Looks like BART and the HSR are on the same track, so to speak.
Financial mismanagement through and through.
Since it’s been proven time and time again that many can work remotely, why do we need the HSR and MORE scheduled BART trains- especially when it’s been shown that ridership is down?
Is anyone at BART thinking????
I have seen ZERO indication that BART management wants to improve efficiency. They’ll just raise fares, raise wages and salaries, raise parking fees, decrease police presence, decrease cleaning etc… to the point where nobody will ride a $hit- filled train full of fare evaders. Instead they’ll spend money on art at BART stations.
Lastly – we don’t need “common-sense solutions.” We need enforcement of laws and clean trains. Stating that common sense solutions are needed when running for the BOS is in conflict with what’s been done at BART.
Don’t point fingers. Take responsibility.
If you’ve failed, you’ve failed and deserve to be fired – and banned from holding other similar jobs.
“BART officials said not increasing wages would have compounded current staffing challenges in a tight labor market and would have potentially impacted service.”
Service? What “service?”
Station agents that can’t be found or sit on their a$$e$ on the phone? Invisible janitors? Invisible police?
Give me a break. You don’t know what “service is.”
Try riding BART during rush hours for a couple of months. Try it at night with the fare evaders and seat $hitters.”
Riiiiiight.
Literally unbelievable. They make a mint to do almost nothing.