OAKLAND, Calif. - Trains in the San Francisco Bay Area were running again Tuesday after a tentative deal capped six months of contentious labor negotiations and two strikes that disrupted hundreds of thousands of daily commutes.
Limited train service from Bay Area Rapid Transit began again about 6 a.m., two hours later than the agency said it would and not in time to prevent many commuters from turning to alternative transportation.
Agency officials hoped trains would be running at full service in time for the afternoon commute. Bay Area Rapid Transit is the nation’s fifth-largest rail system, with an average weekday ridership of 400,000.
Morning traffic at the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge toll plaza was snarled, and transit stations were emptier than usual, with a few people dotting platforms as news spread that the strike had ended.
Meshe Harris, 22, of Hayward had been watching the labor dispute closely, hoping it would end quickly. She had no car and somewhere important to be early Tuesday.
“I was really excited because I have to go to Daly City for an interview,” Harris said while waiting for a train at the Montgomery Street station in San Francisco. “So I was hoping, thank God, that it was going to be running soon.”
The settlement was reached two days after two track workers were killed in a Bay Area Rapid Transit train accident in Walnut Creek. Federal investigators said the train was run by an employee who was being trained.
Union officials said they had warned that training managers to operate trains during a walkout could be dangerous.
Amalgamated Transit Union’s International President Larry Hanley said he wants a criminal investigation into the deaths.
“I’m not saying they intended to kill,” Hanley said of the train’s operators. “But what I am saying is there was a callous and reckless disregard for the safety of people.”
Transit officials said employees were trickling into work as they heard about the settlement that ended the four-day strike.
The tentative deal was announced by Bay Area Rapid Transit and union officials late Monday night. It still requires the approval of union members and the transit agency’s board of directors.
It contains the same economic package as a deal that nearly came together before workers went on strike last week, said Hanley, whose union represents train drivers and station agents.
Bay Area Rapid Transit and its workers had been closing in on an agreement on the typically contentious issues of wages and benefits before the deal fell apart Friday over workplace rules.
The transit agency demanded changes to the way schedules are made and when overtime is paid. The agency also wanted to move from paper to electronic record keeping.
Bay Area Rapid Transit backed off Monday on most of those issues and settled on minor changes that would allow the introduction of new technology, according to Hanley. He wouldn’t be more specific, but one change the agency was pushing for was having pay stubs distributed electronically instead of by hand.
A vote by the rank and file on the tentative deal could come Monday at the earliest, Hanley said.
Bay Area Rapid Transit General Manager Grace Crunican said Monday night that there would be no immediate announcements on the details, as union leaders explained the agreement to their members.
However, she said it marked a compromise.
“This deal is more than we wanted to pay,” she said.
The talks between the transit agency and its two largest unions dragged on for six months - a period that saw two chaotic days-long strikes, contentious negotiations and frazzled commuters wondering whether they would wake up to find the trains running.
Information for this article was contributed by Jason Dearen, Haven Daley and Terence Chea of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 10/23/2013