BART Strike 2013: Gov. Jerry Brown requested a 60-day cooling-off period, and a San Francisco Superior Court judge agreed. A heated dispute between Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) and its labor unions, which will not go to strike—at least not until Oct. 10 at midnight—keeping about 400,000 BART riders moving.
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Curtis Karnow said in his order that a strike would “endanger the public’s health safety or welfare.”
BART Director Zakhary Mallett echoed these words. He said, “Another strike would have had grave impacts on the riding and driving public,”according to SF Gate.
A four-day strike last month in what is the nations fifth largest rail system disrupted traffic and more in the region.
Sandy Zhou, 22, said her 40-minute commute on BART to work at a San Francisco Metro PCS store turned into three hours during the strike.
“As long as it keeps the trains running, do whatever you have to do,” she said. “I’m all for higher wages, but I need to get to work.”
Chris Finn, a member of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555 and part of the bargaining team blamed the stalemate on the transit district, according to SF Gate. He said its latest offer was “regressive,” and instead of higher wages, wages would have been cut.
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