Of the impending BART Strike~~~~

Well My Darklings,

I'm here very early at work today,  cleared off a lot of things and in about 30 minutes we will have our All-Staff meeting.

Already David is plying me with Hazelnut Mocha Coffee, our Director has cereral with either hot or cold milk, fresh fruit, fruit juice, coffee, tea, pastry, and Bagels with several different kinds of spreads.  He knows many of us left home without eating and this promises to be a long meeting.

We heard the word on last nights news broadcast, the BART Unions have given a 72 hour notice that they will strike on Midnight Monday Aug 4, so no service on Monday, unless both the Union and the BART management come to an agreement.

Which we know will not happen.   The Union is asking too much and are already the highest paid transport agency in the United States,  many of us have gone over the numbers and we agree that this Union does not pay into its pension program, only pays a flat $92 allowance into their medical program, where as other govenement agencies do pay into those programs with the company paying matching funds to match the difference. 

The BART Union does not want that to change, well as almost all of my co-workers agree, the BART Union better change or there will be new training under a new contract with less money and paying into those programs, and the old staffers can kiss their jobs bye-bye.   Much of the Public is not on the Union's side.  

One thing we do agree on is that better safety for BART employees and for passengers is very important, but the Union is using that as a cover-up to distract from the fact that they want to even be even higher paid.  And who is going to pay for that????   The Passenger riders with higher fees to ride the BART.  And many of them cannot afford to have that kind of increase.

And yesterday the BART Union Board as well as members of other Unions gathered in front of City Hall in Oakland to show solidarity???!!!  Where is solidarity for the BART passenger?!

And for the State Capital to become involved requires a vote by the state congress? as well as other legal hoops?   With out regard to the damage to the economy???   Oh something is very rotten in Sacramento.

So here we are, waiting for the meeting, already I can see huge boards being set up so that a plan can be in place, the idea is that we will copy what is finalized on the plan, then a designated person will print it out and distribute it, we'll look it over and agree or make final changes then print out the new plan for finalization.  We will be here till late I think, our Director said he will buy dinner if it looks like we are going to go past 5 p.m.  We all agreed PIZZA, much easier and we have two microwaves to heat up slices if need be.

Of course everyone is shocked, Shocked!!  I came wearing slacks, granted they are in black, but no one has ever seen me wearing slacks to work, I said "Well isn't Friday sometimes referred to as 'Casual Friday' ?  So why not wear slacks.  Espeically as this is going to be a long, long day."   No arguements.

One of my co-workers will give me a lift home, as its on his way.   ***sigh***  It's going to be a difficult August for communiting.

Later Darklings