On Wednesday afternoon, Brown appointed a three-member board to investigate the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 192′s strike notice and labor dispute between the union and AC Transit. The board has seven days to conduct its investigation, during which strikes and lockouts are prohibited by law.

At the conclusion of its investigation, the board will present Brown with its findings, and based on the results, Brown can then petition a court for a 60-day cooling-off period.

“For the sake of the people of the Bay Area, I urge both sides to take this matter seriously and to continue working to find a fair solution,” Brown said in his letter to the union and AC Transit.

The individuals appointed to the board include Peter Southworth, deputy secretary and general counsel at the California State Agency Transportation Agency, Josie Camacho, executive secretary-treasurer of the Alameda Labor Council, and Micki Callahan, director of human resources for the city and county of San Francisco.

After AC Transit employees issued a 72-hour strike notice Monday, AC Transit’s board of directors asked Brown on Tuesday to impose a 60-day cooling-off period to stop AC Transit workers from striking because the proposed strike would “significantly endanger the public’s health, safety and welfare.”

ATU Local 192, which represents about 1,760 bus operators, mechanics, dispatchers and clerical and allied workers at AC Transit, previously turned down two tentative agreements. The union and AC Transit resumed negotiations on Wednesday at 5 p.m.

If AC Transit workers had gone on strike, about 200,000 passengers in Alameda and Contra Costa counties would have been left without transportation Thursday.

Daphne Chen is a news editor. Contact her at daphnechen@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @dchen_dc.

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Arya Aliabadi/File

AC Transit employees could strike this Thursday, following a 72-hour notice they issued Monday night.

Amalgamated Transit Union Local 192, a union that represents 1,760 bus operators, mechanics, dispatchers, clerical and allied workers at AC Transit, rejected a labor contract proposed by AC Transit. AC Transit union employees have already twice rejected proposed labor agreements.

On Tuesday, AC Transit’s board of directors asked Gov. Jerry Brown to impose a 60-day cooling-off period to stop AC Transit workers from striking, according to a press release from AC Transit. In a letter to Brown, AC Transit said the proposed strike would “significantly endanger the public’s health, safety and welfare.”

In early August, ATU Local 192 and AC Transit reached a tentative agreement on negotiations that included a wage increase of 9.5 percent over the next three years and monthly health care contributions of $70, $140 and $180, respectively, for each of the three years. However, the union rejected the contract.

“Like most Americans, our members lost substantial income during the great recession,” said ATU Local 192 President Yvonne Williams in an Oct. 2 press release by the union. “They are expressing concern about how this raise, after medical deductions, makes up for those past concessions.”

AC Transit spokesperson Clarence Johnson said that AC Transit has not received any requests from the union to change its proposal. There are no negotiations scheduled at this time, but he said there may be “at some point.”

“They rejected the contract, but they haven’t gotten back to us on what’s wrong with it,” Johnson said. “We’re kind of in the dark here on how to proceed with negotiations.”

ATU Local 192 workers transport about 200,000 passengers a day in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. Of that number, Johnson said about 60,000 are schoolchildren.

BART union employees also threatened to strike on Tuesday, but they postponed the strike after deciding to continue negotiations that day. If an agreement is not met between unions and BART management, BART workers could go on strike this week.

In that case, 400,000 daily BART commuters could be left without transportation, in addition to the potentially 200,000 AC Transit riders on Thursday.

Tara Hurley covers city news. Contact her at thurley@dailycal.org.

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Benny Grush/Staff

Although BART management and labor unions failed to reach an agreement Thursday night, union leadership agreed to extend talks through the weekend, narrowly averting what would have been this year’s second BART strike.

In early August, San Francisco County Superior Court granted Gov. Jerry Brown’s request for a 60-day “cooling-off” period that barred BART employees from striking. This expired at the end of Thursday. If the two sides had failed to reach an agreement by then, BART employees could have gone on strike Friday, disrupting more than 400,000 daily commuters.

Talks between BART and labor unions are set to resume at 10 a.m. Friday. If an agreement is not reached this weekend, the unions could strike as early as Monday.

Negotiations earlier this week were stalled by various stumbling blocks as the parties sought to come to a consensus and avoid a repeat of the summer’s BART strike, which lasted from July 1 to 5.

On Tuesday night, unions and BART management were “very close” to an agreement, according to Des Patten, a spokesperson from Service Employees International Union Local 1021. However, negotiations fell through after BART management said there had been a miscommunication.

“That was an unfortunate situation,” Patten said. “We just told them, ‘You were at this point, and that’s where we expected you to be’ and what we were ready to talk about.”

One of the main points of contention during recent negotiations was an offer from BART to increase pay by 10 percent over four years, which unions said was insufficient.

“There’s no such thing as a 10 percent raise, because you first subtract the amount of money that will be used to pay for the pension, and then you subtract the amount that will be paid for medical,” Patten said. The service employees union also made “significant changes” to its wage offer during negotiations, he added.

On Thursday afternoon, BART spokesperson Jim Allison said BART management planned to present a new offer that was “greater than that 10 percent over four years.”

Previously, the two sides unofficially agreed on a plan to reimburse employees 72 cents for every $1 they contribute toward their pensions. The unions and BART management entered Thursday’s negotiations with this agreement tentatively in place, Allison said.

Another major issue discussed this week was safety measures in the workplace for BART employees, such as insufficient lighting and overgrown brush along tracks.

“Some areas of the tunnels are extremely dark, and you can’t see very well — it’s a danger for employees,” Patten said. “If something goes wrong and (patrons) have to evacuate the train, it’s very dark, and people could stumble and fall.”

Throughout this week, the two sides made progress on smaller, nonmonetary issues, including work regulations, according to Patten.

News editor Megan Messerly contributed to this report.

Contact Jessie Lau at jlau@dailycal.org.

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Warner Music Group/Courtesy

It isn’t midterm time already, is it? If you’ve already started to spend too much time in the library, The Daily Clog is here to provide you with some much-needed distraction (and a little bit of variety from your Facebook feed.)

Here are the questions to the survey. All you have to do is go to your music library and put it on shuffle. Respond to each survey question with a random song that came on while shuffling. We did it ourselves to get you started. Try it out!

How you feel when you wake up for your Monday 8 a.m.: “Don’t Wake Me Up” by Chris Brown

Your thoughts as you’re waiting for the AC Transit to come take you to campus: “Slow Life” by Grizzly Bear

Your thoughts as you’re weaving through Sproul to get to class: “Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns N’ Roses

How you feel when you’re in line at the GBC around noon: “Hungry Like the Wolf” by Duran Duran

The strangest thing a professor has said to you during office hours: “Because I Got High” by Afroman

How you felt at your first Co-Op party: “Teenage Crime” by Adrian Lux

Your thoughts on 4/20 on Memorial Glade: “So This Is Love” by The Cheetah Girls

Try this out yourself and post your results in the comments!

Contact Gabrielle Nguyen at gnguyen@dailycal.org.

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Arya Aliabadi/Staff

AC Transit and city staff members met with community members Monday night to discuss planned changes to the 51B bus line as part of a larger project to improve transit flow across Alameda, Oakland and Berkeley.

The line 51 bus project aims to reduce passenger travel time, mitigate air pollution and enhance public safety on the 51A and 51B bus lines. The proposed changes come with a $10.5 million federal grant allocated by the state as part of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s Transit Performance Initiative.

Monday night’s meeting specifically focused on proposed changes to the 51B line in Berkeley, including relocating bus stops from the near sides to the far sides of intersections, changing traffic-signal timing to accommodate buses and adding bus-only lanes on University Avenue. The plan also would remove certain stops and add wider sidewalks at some stops for the purpose of accessibility.

With a weekday ridership of more than 19,000 people, the 51 bus line is the most widely used line in the AC Transit system, as stated in the AC Transit presentation given Monday night.

According to the presentation, the changes would save approximately seven minutes of travel time in each direction — north and south — in Berkeley. Currently, the travel time in Berkeley in each direction is about 36 minutes.

“I’m really upset,” said Berkeley resident Merrilie Mitchell in response to the proposed changes. “I ride the 51 all the time. But they’re going to be taking out stops, and when they take out stops, less people will ride the bus, and then they’ll lessen the number of buses.”

Berkeley resident John Sporich believes the city and AC Transit should consider creating a new bus line that would run down University Avenue only, from the Berkeley Amtrak station to the UC Berkeley campus.

“The buses on University Avenue are always packed with people during peak hours,” Sporich said. “The buses going down College Avenue, on the other hand, barely have any people … there’s no reason a bus from University Avenue should loop all the way down College.”

However, the design proposals, for which development began early this summer, are still in the beginning stages and are subject to revision after AC Transit reviews comments from the Berkeley community. More finalized proposals will be presented to the public around late September or early October, said David Fyfe, a consulting engineer for the project.

Additionally, the city’s public works department has to review the proposed changes and will recommend the ones it approves of  to the city’s transportation commission on Oct. 17.

If the city approves the plans, construction is expected to start in January 2014, and the entire project is expected to be completed in July 2014, according to the presentation.

“Things need to be changed,” Sporich said. “It’s maddening — none of the buses actually follow a schedule.”

Another meeting is planned Thursday night at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts for residents who could not attend the first meeting.

Alison Fu covers city news. Contact her at afu@dailycal.org.

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The contract agreement between the union, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 192, and AC Transit was tentatively been put forward on Aug. 6 but was overwhelmingly voted down by union members in a vote of 576 to 257, with nearly 70 percent voting against the deal.

The rejected contract would have instituted a 9.5 percent pay increase for workers over the course of three years but would have also have required them to begin contributing a share of their medical insurance premiums, the Contra Costa Times reports.

The union represents 1,760 workers, including bus drivers, mechanics, dispatchers and clerical workers.

Sara Grossman is a staff writer. Contact her at sgrossman@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @saragrossman.

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Alex Mousouris/Staff

An AC Transit strike has been averted following a tentative agreement between Amalgamated Transit Union Local 192 and AC Transit just an hour before workers threatened to strike.

The agreement will prevent AC Transit’s 181,000 daily riders from having to find alternative methods of transportation.

The new agreement allows a wage increase of 9.5 percent over the next three years and monthly health care contributions of $70, $140 and $180, respectively, for each of the three years.

“This was a long and often intense negotiation, and there are no winners or losers in its outcome,” said AC Transit general manager David Armijo in a press release. “We are happy we were able to get through process without any disruption in service. Clearly, both sides focused on what was best for the riders and taxpayers of this district and what is in the long-term interest of maintaining public transit for the communities we serve.”

The union, which represents 1,800 bus drivers and mechanics, had threatened to strike on Monday amid ongoing negotiations.

All services will continue running on their normal schedule.

More updates to follow.

Andrea Guzman is a news editor. Contact her at aguzman@dailycal.org

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ATU Local 192, which represents 1,800 bus drivers and mechanics, gave notice on Monday of its intention to strike, which could leave AC Transit’s 181,000 daily riders without transportation. Employees’ contracts expired in late June, and negotiations have been ongoing for several weeks.

According to Clarence Johnson, manager of media affairs at AC Transit, both parties have been working to come to a solution and avoid service interruption. As the third-largest public bus system in California, an AC Transit strike is expected to cause much disruption as the BART strike last month did.

“Regrettably, our contingency plan involves simply no service,” Johnson said. “We cannot operate without drivers.”

Wage increases and contributions to health care have proved to be major issues in the negotiations. ATU members currently do not contribute to health coverage costs.

“We’re more than willing to pay,” said Yvonne Williams, president of ATU Local 192. “But we need a flat rate rather than a percentage, since we can’t control what that might escalate to.”

According to Johnson, the district wants ATU employees to contribute 10 percent of the cost of the monthly premiums, which would equal approximately $120 per pay period. The union’s flat rate would equal about $80 per pay period.

In a press conference on Tuesday morning, Johnson said that he is optimistic about preventing a strike, given the steady progress that has been made thus far.

“We started this weekend at $9 million dollars apart,” Johnson said. “We’re now only about $4 million apart as of last night. We are 1 percentage point apart in our wage proposals. We’re offering 9 percent; the union is seeking 10 percent. We’re moving in the right direction.”

According to Williams, however, the negotiations have been a “difficult process.” Although the union wishes to avoid a strike, it remains a possible outcome.

“Our goal is to avert a strike,” Williams said. “But we’re still intending to strike if we do not reach a collective bargaining agreement for our members for ratification.”

Contact Somin Park at sominpark@dailycal.org.

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Evan Walbridge/File

A union representing about 1,800 AC Transit workers plans to strike as early as Wednesday at 12:01 a.m.

Amalgamated Transit Union Local 192, which represents mechanics, dispatchers and clerical workers at AC Transit, plans to give notice of a strike to the AC Transit board of directors on Wednesday if no further progress is made on reaching a contract agreement.

A previous AC Transit worker contract expired on June 31. A strike could disrupt as many as 200,000 daily AC Transit passengers.

“Management has failed to meet its legal responsibility to bargain in good faith,” said ATU Local 192 President Yvonne Williams in a press release. ”Substantial health and safety issues, including meal and rest periods, and fundamental human rights are at stake.”

ATU Local 192 has cited problems with worker safety during negotiations, saying the rate of injury among AC Transit workers has increased in recent years. Last Wednesday, an AC Transit bus caught fire on I-880 south.

AC Transit unions previously threatened to strike at the end of June, when BART workers were preparing to strike. However, AC Transit administration and unions “agreed to disagree” while continuing negotiations and averted a strike.

Jacob Brown is a news editor. Contact him at jbrown@dailycal.org.

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For better or for worse, sometimes real life is stranger than fiction. On July 19, like something out of a Jan de Bont film, a shirtless, barefoot man stole an AC Transit bus in San Francisco’s Transbay Terminal and drove it 100 miles north on Highway 120 before being caught and swiftly arrested by officials. The reason he was shirtless and barefoot remains speculative. But it’s practically a mathematical certainty: The amount of clothing a perp is wearing is inversely proportional to how interesting we find him or her.

AC Transit spokesperson Clarence Johnson reported that the agency knew something was wrong when an emergency alarm on the bus sounded around 9:20 a.m. AC Transit’s operations control could see through a GPS tracking system that the bus, usually kept in a parking lot on standby, was leaving San Francisco and heading east.

Now, we can’t speak for everyone, but here at the Clog, an AC Transit bus would be rock bottom on the list of vehicles we would steal if we were criminals — perhaps even after our own mothers’ Toyota Siennas. The suspect, Justin Moss of San Francisco, however, seemed to make the most of it. He embarked on a joyride of nearly two hours before California Highway Patrol officers slowed down the rogue bus with a spike strip around 11:30 a.m. The bus eventually came to a halt with three flat tires, and Moss was quickly arrested near Oakdale, Calif. Moss is being held at San Joaquin County Jail, where he is now facing charges of reckless driving, driving without a license, failure to yield, grand theft auto and felony evasion, among others. There were no passengers on board. And if you were at all concerned about the status of the bus, it is now resting safely in its parking space at the terminal, emerging from the incident relatively unscathed.

Moss has a criminal history, including an outstanding $20,000 warrant from the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department for another account of grand theft auto. We’re no detectives, but what we find particularly odd is that he appeared to have the knowledge and skills necessary to operate a public transportation bus that the average layperson lacks. Could if be that Moss is a former bus driver? Or perhaps this was premeditated bus napping? We are all in the dark regarding the motive behind the act. Could it be linked to fear of future public transit strikes? Was he seeking a free tour of the Central Valley? Or is it just a classic case of distorted YOLO mentality? Your guess is as good as ours. Regardless of the intent, as (almost) always, it could have been much much worse.

Image Source: Paul Sullivan under Creative Commons  

Contact Liz Zarka at lzarka@dailycal.org.

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