Muni Union Votes To Approve Strike Authorization, SF Threatens Legal Action

[Newsjock]

Source: Bay City News Service

San Francisco Municipal Railway's transit operators' union has informed Muni officials that its members have voted to authorize a strike if labor negotiations break down, a Muni spokesman said today.

Transport Workers Union Local 250-A, which represents the roughly 2,200 operators of Muni's buses and light-rail vehicles, began a vote last Friday that would authorize its leaders to call a strike, union Secretary-Treasurer Walter Scott said.

... The union's current contract has a no-strike clause, but Scott said earlier this week that the clause is "open for legal interpretation" and has "never been tested."

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera said in a statement following news of the strike authorization that his office "will take appropriate legal recourse" in the event of a threatened or actual strike.

Read more: http://sfappeal.com/news/2011/04/muni-union-votes-to-approve-strike-authorization-sf-threatens-legal-action.php

[CountAllVotes]

1. Muni should call for a General Strike

Let's remember what being in a Union is all about. Repeat the likes of 1934!

We shall not forget!

# SIXTY-FIVE thousand trade unionists during four July days staged on the shores of San Francisco Bay the second and most widespread general strike in United States history. From the sixteenth through the nineteenth they carried out an extended maneuver which surprised, bewildered, gratified, or terrified and maddened the average citizen. To most Americans there is something reign about a general strike, and a bit ominous—like the "dole," storm-troopers, socialists, communists, fascists, and a lot of other things that used to seem farther away than they do now. But to many on the Pacific Coast, experience has made the general strike at least real, however differently they may interpret it—as a splendid demonstration of the strength and "solidarity of labor," a victory for the "real leaders of labor," a "sell-out" by labor "fakirs," a "strikers' Dictatorship," or an "insurrection."

# The San Francisco general strike of 1934 was in no sense a "sport." It is but the latest of a long line of conflicts between employers and employed in that area, many of them, like the general strike, centering about the waterfront, and focusing on the degree of control over employment to be exercised by employers or by union. For power flows from job control. Beginning in the late eighties, the shipowners' association established a hiring-hall as a device for breaking union power. The sailors struck, proposed joint control, were refused, and then beaten. In 1934 the longshoremen demanded substitution of union-control for employer-control of hiring halls. The employers proposed joint control, here refused, and the issue finally went to arbitration. The general strike was but a climax to the 1934 phase of this perennial struggle for power.

http://newdeal.feri.org/survey/34405.htm

Living/relying on Muni back in about 1976 or so when the last strike was on was no fun! It lasted for a few weeks and what a mess it was! We car-pooled to work if someone was lucky enough to have a car. Others walked having no other way to get around town.

It was chaotic and there seemed no end in sight. Negotiations were going nowhere until they began to yell out those ugly words "GENERAL STRIKE!". It seems they settled up not too long after that!

UNION YES and maybe Municipal Railway of San
Francisco will have to relearn/reteach a lesson or two.

They were fools to sign that contract prohibiting strikes. It may very well have to be tested!

:kick:

[Book Lover]

2. MUNI has squandered all of its goodwill. If they strike, it will be a blow to unions

Sounds like you haven't lived here in a long time. MUNI is the poster union for antiunionists. Sometimes I wonder if they've been infiltrated, that's how bad they are.

[CountAllVotes]

3. it has been a long time

Actually I quit riding their buses long before I left. It had sunk to a low level at that time some 20 years ago.

However, I was glad they were there and luckily I was able to walk to work.

They were fools to sign that contract.

Sounds like they sold themselves out from what you have written.

Oh well ... they'll learn the hard way AGAIN I suppose. :(

[Psephos]

4. Sad to say you are right.

Here's an example of the kind of thing that's blowing holes in MUNI's P.R.

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2011/04/21/muni-texter-found-driving-again-despite-suspension/

[alp227]

5. I've never ridden the MUNI before but from those horror stories

(I know locally since I live in San Jose) I don't have a very good impression of the MUNI union now. But I ride the VTA regularly in my county, and VTA hasn't been so disgraceful.

[CountAllVotes]

6. Wow that is bad!

What did it for me (and this was 20 years ago) was that the driver picked up a couple of teenagers and they decided to assault two passengers on the bus at random.

I was sitting next to them and I also had a can of mace on me being I worked in the Tenderloin and many of my co-workers were being robbed/attacked going to work in the morning.

I had to mace those two teenagers as they were beating up this man and woman next to me (I mean they were down; lying on the floor of the bus being kicked!). So, I maced them, yes I did.

The driver ignored the incident and when I went to get off of the bus a well built 200+ lb. male passenger criticized me for helping the two passengers that were assaulted. I told him that he should have done something rather than leave it up to a woman to handle the mess.

As for the driver, I attempted to report him to nothing by deaf ears at Municipal Railway.

After that, I never rode a MUNI bus again, nope.

Texting while driving the 24 Divisadero? Good damn luck on that! They should have fired this driver!

[parkia00]

7. This threat might blow up in their faces.

I remember (some time ago) they did this and the riders turned on them. I've had way too many nasty incidences with MUNI from being stuck in the subway for over three hours, light rail drivers and bus drivers driving off when passengers have not fully embarked or disembarked. bus driver zooming past stops with passengers screaming at them that they have past their stops cause it was the end of the drivers shift and the really bad maintenance of their buses and trains; like say overhead handle bars held not by screws but duct tape. I remember when I was on one of the old Boeing Vertol light rail cars before they were all phased out I was reading the graffiti on the inside of the cabin. One struck out. It was keyed into the side of the passenger compartment and whoever did that also marked the year the graffiti was done. It was 1976!!! After all those decades it was not painted over or removed!