San Francisco commuter train service restarts after strike

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San Francisco commuter train service restarts after strike

(Chinadaily.com.cn) 08:55, October 23, 2013

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SAN FRANCISCO - San Francisco's commuter trains lumbered back into operation for the first time in five days early on Tuesday after union workers reached a tentative labor deal with management, ending a strike that paralyzed the nation's fifth-largest rapid transit network.

Officials for the Bay Area Rapid Transit, or BART, system clinched a settlement late Monday with two unions representing more than 2,000 striking employees, capping several months of contentious contract negotiations over wages, benefits and workplace rules.

Train service was limited early on Tuesday, and BART officials warned riders to expect 30- to 45-minute delays systemwide as employees returned to work.

Due to the late hour of the deal - announced at around 10 p.m. Monday night (0500 GMT Tuesday) - and the logistics of ramping up the system from a standstill to full capacity, BART executives said normal service was unlikely to resume before the Tuesday afternoon rush-hour.

The strike, a continuation of labor tensions that led to a four-day walkout in July, halted a commuter rail system that serves more than 400,000 round-trip riders a day in San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley and suburbs.

The result was extreme rush-hour gridlock in one of the most traffic-clogged cities in the United States.

BART ranks as the fifth-largest U.S. rapid transit system by ridership, after New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago and Boston, according to data from the American Public Transportation Association.

Details of the tentative settlement, reached with the help of a federal mediator and subject to ratification by union rank-and-file and BART's board of directors, were not disclosed.

But BART General Manager Grace Crunican described the four-year package as providing "more than we wanted to pay."

The two unions involved - Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1021 and Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1555 - said the deal "provides for reasonable wage increases, a compromise on pension and healthcare costs (and) work rule changes that allow for innovation and input from workers."