BART Boasts of $128 Million in Savings on Same Day it Spurns Workers' Family Leave

[RandySF]

BART's Board of Directors yesterday sent the transit agency's already Wagnerian labor imbroglio skittering off the tracks and into a dark and unforeseen place.

In spurning a contract provision providing workers with up to six weeks of paid medical leave -- which management claims was, somehow, erroneously ratified earlier -- BART's directors have set the stage for what could be the third strike of 2013 and resultant transit Armageddon.

At this point, BART management could do just about anything and it wouldn't raise eyebrows. By the time its $399,000 hired gun Tom Hock missed a bargaining session to go to Disneyland -- taking a break from artless, deal-free negotiations to deliver a lecture titled "The Art of Negotiating the Deal" -- any and all Rubicons had been crossed.

So, it might come as little surprise that, on the very day BART's board declared a family leave provision pegged at between $1.4 million and $10.5 million a year too costly, it gratuitously boasted of $128 million in savings via an accelerated train car procurement deal.

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2013/11/bart_family_leave.php

[mulsh]

1. One thing not being reported is that all CA workers are covered by both the

federal FMLA and state of California's FMLA. Both FMLA can and should be applied consecutively , not concurrently and give California workers twice the leave time that workers in other states are not entitled to.

Oh and BART Management and its over priced union busting negotiator have no ability to pay attention to details.