
Bay Area BART Salaries - tlogan
http://www.mercurynews.com/salaries/bay-area?Entity=Bay%20Area%20Rapid%20Transit
======
emanuer
I am on page 60 where train operators and station agents are making $122 000.

The difference between "workers" and manager salaries is about 4x, pretty low
compared to the private sector.

I find the salaries to be outrageously high, even factoring in that we are
talking about the Bay Area & San Francisco. Considering that the average age
of BART's cars is 30 years [1], the money seems better spend on updating the
equipment.

[1] [http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/local/bart-moved-update-
rapidl...](http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/local/bart-moved-update-rapidly-
aging-fleet-train-cars/nYKGq/)

~~~
justizin
Union mechanics update the equipment, and BART has been offering pay
increases, which they also admit are not increases, preferentially to safety
improvements.

For instance, the lighting situation in the tunnels is unacceptable and has
likely been involved in at least one worker death.

BART workers have important jobs, evidenced by the pain we're experiencing as
a region without them. That's what strikes are about.

Would you appreciate your salary negotiation going something like this:

    
    
      "Hey, four years ago when the company and our customers were struggling, I accepted a pay freeze to cover essential costs to keep us afloat."
    
      "Thanks for that.  We'd like you to start covering some of the costs of your benefits, though we're actually doing a good bit better.  We're going to give you a raise that amounts to half of inflation in the most optimistic of light, and that will cover the new costs we're asking you to cover.  We're going to do this so that we can go to the press and say that we offered you a raise, you're a bunch of ungrateful fucks, and look at how you've fucked all of the poor riders.  Also, on top of that, all of the things you've asked us to purchase for the system that would increase worker safety are rejected or deferred - we don't think that should be a part of your negotiation, even if you're saying that you might be willing to accept the pay we're offering if we budged a bit more on these costs.  Do you accept?"
    

[http://www.keepbartrunning.com/an_open_letter_to_the_communi...](http://www.keepbartrunning.com/an_open_letter_to_the_community_from_the_bart_workers)

~~~
aspensmonster
I'm an outsider to west coast city politics, but I suspect it's the same all
over: the details of why the public workers are striking won't matter.
Previous sacrifices and safety concerns be damned. All the public at large
will hear thanks to this salary data is that the public worker is doing
substantially better than they are in terms of pay and benefits, and likely
for less time and effort. Of course, the majority of people --who labour under
private entities that regard salaries as costs to be minimized-- could never
expect such treatment. And if they can't get it then they sure as hell won't
stand for someone else getting it on their taxpayer dime.

It's classic divide and conquer class stratification, and you don't even have
to do the agitating yourself.

~~~
incision
*>"I'm an outsider to west coast city politics, but I suspect it's the same all over: the details of why the public workers are striking won't matter."

Yep.

I can personally confirm that things of this sort play out precisely the same
way among east coast equivalents.

------
joshuaellinger
This is a better way to look at the salaries.

[http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/BARTsalaries/BARTsal...](http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/BARTsalaries/BARTsalariesandovertime?:embed=y&:display_count=no)

Tableau Rocks!

~~~
jotux
Something seems to be wrong. I see base salaries over 200k but in the tableau
link the max base is 190k.

~~~
ebbflowgo
was thinking the same

------
arrowgunz
Wow. BART employees make more than an average Software Developer and yet they
want to go on a strike. What a shame.

~~~
justizin
Actually, the high salaried employees you see are people like the General
Manager who refuse to personally come to the bargaining table at all, and
probably approve raises for themselves.

The average salary of striking workers is about $61k, and management has
accepted that their current offer only results in a substantive increase of $1
over four years, after BART workers accepted a freeze four years ago to inject
$100M into the system.

More info:

    
    
      http://www.keepbartrunning.com/an_open_letter_to_the_community_from_the_bart_workers

~~~
bobo13579
The average pay for a Bay Area worker is $65K. That worker is a professional
with a college degree. Why does unskilled transit work deserve so much pay?

~~~
apineda
They provide a great service to people like you and I who use their transport,
washrooms etc. If they were not paid well they would not do their jobs and the
BART system would be in disarray. They deserve pay increases just like
everyone else.

~~~
jonsterling
Clearly you have never used a BART washroom, my friend. Though, the confusion
is understandable, since BART stations tend to smell like washrooms outside
the washrooms too.

Tell me more about what a good job BART employees do.

~~~
dunham
BART has public washrooms? I thought they were all closed to the public. (I've
only been in a handful of stations, and don't usually check out the washrooms,
but I believe the montgomery street one has a sign on the door to that
effect.)

~~~
malandrew
I was under the impression that many of them were closed after 9-11. I was
told by a BART employee that that is why the Berkeley BART bathroom has been
closed for years.

~~~
jonsterling
There's an open one in Rockridge BART at least. Now that I think of it, that's
the only station I've been in that has a bathroom.

------
btipling
Comments here are disappointing. Pay is what employers are willing or need to
pay to maintain skilled expertise. There's absolutely nothing wrong with
collective bargaining driving up the price of the cost of employees. These
salaries are middle class salaries in the Bay Area and barely enough to buy a
house in some of the poorer areas. If you are unhappy with your own pay, work
hard to improve your station in life. It is tax payer money, but it's paying
what is needed in order to keep BART moving. BART provides an immense service
to the bay area, and it can't happen without the drivers and staff. They
provide a valuable service, and I support their strike.

~~~
apsec112
"These salaries are middle class salaries in the Bay Area and barely enough to
buy a house in some of the poorer areas."

Whether someone can afford a house or not has nothing to do with what market
rate for work should be.

"One of the biggest divergences between the Daddy Model and reality is the
valuation of hard work. In the Daddy Model, hard work is in itself deserving.
In reality, wealth is measured by what one delivers, not how much effort it
costs. If I paint someone's house, the owner shouldn't pay me extra for doing
it with a toothbrush.

It will seem to someone still implicitly operating on the Daddy Model that it
is unfair when someone works hard and doesn't get paid much. To help clarify
the matter, get rid of everyone else and put our worker on a desert island,
hunting and gathering fruit. If he's bad at it he'll work very hard and not
end up with much food. Is this unfair? Who is being unfair to him?" \-
[http://paulgraham.com/gap.html](http://paulgraham.com/gap.html)

~~~
btipling
The mental gymnastics between perceived value of what these individuals do and
the actual value (and damage the strike is doing to the local economy) do not
match. It doesn't matter if you think these people are just pushing buttons.
BART isn't running, and that immense value is not being provided. It also
doesn't matter what people think these people should earn. It's what BART is
willing to pay, and what employees are willing to accept to work there.

~~~
apsec112
When a service is both essential and a natural monopoly, employees extracting
all of the "immense value being provided" is _very_ , _very_ bad. Suppose the
employees of SF's water company were allowed to charge the full value provided
by delivering water to San Francisco. People can't do without water, and so
everyone's water bill would now be thousands of dollars a month, since they
have no alternative but to pay it. And the next week, everyone would realize
this sucked and anyone who was able to would leave.

------
lemmsjid
This narrative gets played over and over. People get ahold of public workers'
salaries, see that they're getting a decent wage, and get all huffy that those
public workers are personally stealing their hard earned taxpayer money. It's
another version of people getting all upset when they see people buying nice
things with food stamps.

When I see those salaries, I think the following:

* I'm glad to see that there's people at BART making a decent wage.

* There are certainly other groups not making as much money.

* What are the forces keeping other groups from making as much money, and how can we get them more?

* San Francisco is in one of the richest regions on the planet. Why shouldn't its public employees make a good livable wage?

* As a public transit user, I like knowing that the person I'm trusting my life with has enough money to keep their blood sugar up and their cortisol levels down.

------
ianb
Things start looking weird when you get to the later pages (I'm looking at
page 130, sorted by TCOE). For instance: Bodin, Gwendolyn (Train Operator,
R-Line Rail Operations): Base pay: $2,901, Medical/Dental/Vision: $20,183

There's a bunch of people who I assume retired, with low base pay but a high
"Other" (which includes vacation day payouts).

Of course near the top there's a ton of overtime, lots of police, which is
"normal" (no idea if it's actually legitimate), but lots of other jobs too,
including some that I'd expect to be salary, like "Moore, Timothy (Principal
Marketing Rep, Communications): Base $100,595, Overtime $40,165"

------
evanwolf
fyi, publicizing how much union workers are paid is a common negotiation
tactic by employers, attempting to erode public support for strikers.

However you interpret the numbers and whatever you post about them, you're
shifting the conversation from union concerns and talking points to
management's.

~~~
cmelbye
Is that wrong? I don't understand. Are the unions always right? Should we
focus only on their concerns?

~~~
jcrites
Furthermore, it seems difficult to examine the situation at all without
considering how much the workers are paid, and how much the company or
government service earns or loses, and in the case of the government, how
effectively it provides its service to the community.

How can we really intelligently discuss the issue without knowing it?

------
quackerhacker
I got an awesome tweet this morning in regard to the BART strike that just
wanted to share:

@cjc: Average BART employee salary is $83K/yr. A teacher with 10 years of
experience in San Francisco makes $50K/yr. Who's striking again?

~~~
kaptain
I'm assuming that average that you're posting is just the average of all the
salaries listed in the data provide. This includes all the administrators (as
far as I can tell). To be a useful comparison, you'd have to include all the
salaries of the administrators OR only average the union workers with 10 years
of experience (or whatever is the equivalent of a teacher with 10 years of
experience).

Interestingly, where did this person get this data? Is it publicly available?

~~~
quackerhacker
[http://www.sfusd.edu/en/assets/sfusd-
staff/contract%20and%20...](http://www.sfusd.edu/en/assets/sfusd-
staff/contract%20and%20salary%20schedules/Teachers%20TK-12%20Salary%20Schedule.pdf)

[http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/local/talks-between-bart-
union...](http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/local/talks-between-bart-unions-
management-resume/nYZmf/)

Since she's an ex-googler, I would hope it wasn't broad speculation, those are
her sources.

My stand on BART though is that they provide a very _critical_ service to the
Bay Area. So they have a lot leverage in their hands since the strike is being
felt throughout the entire bay and all professional classes. I disagree that
it should be happening if their pay is that high.

------
andymoe
I don't buy all the outraged posts here or the facebook comments on the
article. I expect _everyone_ to negotiate hard on their behalf to put
themselves and their families in the very best position they are able.

Don't come crying to me because in your mind you value a BART employees
contribution more or less than a teachers or your own contribution to society
and you don't think it's fair. It's not about your subjective value of x or y
or anyone's idea of fairness. It's about each parties leverage and negating
position and nothing else.

~~~
prostoalex
Except public employees' counter-parties at the negotiating tables are
politicians financed by public employees' unions.

------
nemo1618
Day-old discussion here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5974829](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5974829)

------
kungfooguru
[http://www.alternet.org/labor/7-things-you-need-know-
about-b...](http://www.alternet.org/labor/7-things-you-need-know-about-bart-
strike-california?paging=off)

[http://www.thenation.com/blog/175063/bart-strike-another-
ins...](http://www.thenation.com/blog/175063/bart-strike-another-instance-
media-portraying-workers-greedy#axzz2XwOY4YDO)

------
ww520
Police make a lot of money. Their overtime is very substantial even if their
base salary is already up there.

------
scrapcode
What about the police officer on page 3 with a base of 73ish, yet a total of
over 500k... Bonuses of over 100k. My figures could be off, though, because
every time I load the page some data disappears. Anyone else getting missing
info?

~~~
ianb
No one has a total over 500k – the default sort is by total pay and the first
on the list is Dorothy Dugger (General Mgr, Deputy General Manager), $419,661.
What's the person's name? (Note that "Other" includes bonuses, but also
includes payout for unused vacation time, which could be accrued over time –
so in some cases it might represent something accumulated over many years.)

