"We will be prepared for the war that you all have launched on your workforce," Roxanne Sanchez, president of the local Service Employees International Union, told the board. Unless the agency changes its stance at the negotiation table, she said, "We will be prepared for the bloodiest, longest strike since the 1970s," when a labor dispute shut down BART for three months in 1979.During the tense 3½-hour meeting in Oakland, other workers cursed, accused BART management of "not giving a crap" about them, charged the directors with "acting like children" and demanded that the agency fire its chief negotiator.
Rhetoric like "bloodiest, longest strike" certainly signals hardball.
The unions are intent on scoring big for their members, demanding more than 5% increases in wages each year for the next 4 years.
At a time when riders and taxpayers are not experiencing guaranteed growth in their incomes, the unions want to get ahead of the inflation rate and live larger.
They can make life very unpleasant for the public, and the deal they in essence offer the public is basically blackmail.
Pay up or face endless traffic jams on the bridges and freeways and the resulting air pollution that will follow.
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