BART Strike: Commuters Wake Up Early To Catch A Ride To Work

It didn't take long for East Bay commuters to feel the effects of the BART strike.

On the first day of the walkout, workers got up before the sun rose on Friday morning to drive across crowded freeways, find someone to carpool with or stand in line for a chartered bus to San Francisco.

No new talks are scheduled between BART management and representatives from Service Employees International Union Local 1021 and Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555.

The unions called for a strike on Thursday afternoon after contract talks broke down over "work issues" as well as wages and benefits. Workers walked off the job at midnight.

BART chartered more than 100 buses to pick up commuters at nine East Bay BART stations and take them to the Transbay Terminal in San Francisco.

There was capacity to transport 6,000 riders, far short of the 400,000 people who ride BART on an average weekday.

So, commuters arrived at the stations as early as 5 a.m. to make sure they got a seat.

At 6:30 a.m., the line at the Walnut Creek BART station stretched far down the block.

Standing among his fellow commuters was Jason Hoyt, who drove from Oakley to catch a bus.

Hoyt said he usually arrives at the BART about 6:30 a.m. He said the buses actually get him to his job in San Francisco more quickly. He didn't mind taking the bus.

"As long as I get there," he said.

However, he had harsh words for both sides in the contract, especially the union members.

"They should fire them all and get people who want to work," he said.

A few feet in front of him was Kathy Slater, a Walnut Creek resident who arrived at the station an hour and a half earlier than she usually does.

She blamed both sides for not reaching a contract agreement.

"They haven't been focused enough," she said.

She didn't mind riding the bus on Friday, but she admitted she's not going to be happy if she has to do this for week or two or more.

"I'm going to kick some ass and take some names," she said.

On the other side of the station was Concord resident Erwin Caimol, who was standing with a co-worker waiting for another fellow employee to give them a ride to work.

They work in Oakland and there were no BART-chartered buses headed there. Both said it was "not OK" for the BART workers to walk off the job.

Caimol said he is usually pro-labor but not in this case. He said the union should have accepted the contract proposal that included a 12 percent raise over four years.

"I would never get anything like that," he said.

Mingling among the frustrated commuters was Orinda City Councilman Steve Glazer, a Democrat who is running for state Assembly in the June 2014 primary.

Glazer was passing out leaflets, promoting his petition to ban transit strikes in California.

You can participate in a Patch poll on whether transit employees should be allowed to strike.

Glazer also blamed both sides for the strike.

"They should have continued talking at the table and worked it out," Glazer said.

BART spokesman Rick Rice said between 120 and 150 buses took passengers to San Francisco from the nine stations on Friday morning.

Extra buses were diverted to Walnut Creek because of the demand there. By 7:30 a.m., all the East Bay buses had been filled and had departed.

Those same buses will take passengers who rode to San Francisco back to the East Bay in the evening.

Other commuters left early and drove into The City. The California Highway Patrol reported the freeways leading to the Bay Bridge were clogged by 6:30 a.m.

Ferry service began at 5 a.m., earlier than usual. Officials say the ferries had more passengers than usual, but not as much as when BART employees went on strike for four and a half days in July.

They predicted heavier crowds in the afternoon and evening when commuters who rode in carpools in the morning use the ferries to get home.

Other East Bay commuters decided to take a day off or work from home on Friday. The commute crowd might be bigger on Monday when some of those employees head back to the office.

Meanwhile, there are still a number of issues that need to be resolved when negotiators return to the bargaining table.

Rice said the two sides have gaps to fill on wages as well as medical and pension benefits.

He added the "work issues" are also an obstacle. Rice said BART wants to get rid of decades-old provisions in the contract that make it difficult for management to change daily operations.

One example is BART employees still take handwritten notes in the field, which then need to be typed up and FAX'd in. Rice said BART wants to give employees hand-held devices, but they can't do that without union consent under the current contract.

Doing things such as having employee paychecks deposited electronically is also difficult to change under the current rules.

"We want to modernize our approach," said Rice. "It will help us run the system more efficiently."

You can read more about the work issues in this Patch story.

Patch placed calls to representatives of both unions, but they haven't returned the calls yet. We'll update the story with their comments when they do.

Bay City News Service contributed to this report.