BART Strike Thread

[tuxumino]

yeah bart train operators are overpaid, I mean how hard can it be to keep an oversized electric train on the tracks. Muni seems to have no problems with the light rail and it's operators.

 

[vaara]

Here's an idea: BART should follow the example of so many private businesses, and outsource as much work as possible.

Train drivers, station staff, and mechanics can't be outsourced... but management can. Let them find a group of guys in Bangalore and pay them $5 a day to sit around with their thumbs up their asses. It can't be that difficult.

 

[Arminius]

Here's an idea: BART should follow the example of so many private businesses, and outsource as much work as possible.

Train drivers, station staff, and mechanics can't be outsourced... but management can. Let them find a group of guys in Bangalore and pay them $5 a day to sit around with their thumbs up their asses. It can't be that difficult.

It takes less training and education to learn how to sit in a booth or operate an almost fully automated train that you don't need to steer, than it does to become a successful manager. Mechanics do take time to train but not as much time as it takes to get a 4 year engineering or business management degree. All of you who bash management probably never worked in management and probably don't have the skill set or else you would be making the decisions instead of following them.

 

[tuxumino]

It takes less training and education to learn how to sit in a booth or operate an almost fully automated train that you don't need to steer, than it does to become a successful manager. Mechanics do take time to train but not as much time as it takes to get a 4 year engineering or business management degree. All of you who bash management probably never worked in management and probably don't have the skill set or else you would be making the decisions instead of following them.

A BA in Business management is a whole lot of work, college life is really tough, I mean there's probably 3 or 4 keggers a weekend to attend.

 

[Sharky]

yeah bart train operators are overpaid, I mean how hard can it be to keep an oversized electric train on the tracks. Muni seems to have no problems with the light rail and it's operators.

Muni drivers are also grossly overpaid. SF transit authority is virtually a welfare project for a bunch of the workers AND management.

 

[Arminius]

A BA in Business management is a whole lot of work, college life is really tough, I mean there's probably 3 or 4 keggers a weekend to attend.

Ok you got me there!

Seriously though, it isn't easy to manage, in fact there is far more stress on a manager than there is for the person on the line. Line workers don't get called at home in the middle of the night and they don't work hours they'll never get paid for and they don't take their work with them on vacation. They [line workers] don't have to worry about the labor laws and conflicts between line to line workers, other departments, and the customer. Managers are the ones held accountable and managers have to make sure everyone is doing their job and getting the work done on time and on budged. The line worker just comes to work, does what they are told, and goes home and doesn't have to think about work again for another 15 hours. The line worker gets generously compensated for working extra hours but the only compensation a manager gets is they get to keep their job. The union line worker has a team of lawyers to fight for them if they get wrongfully fired but the manager just has to suck it up and go look for another job. Chances are the manager has done the line worker's job or knows enough about it to do it themselves, but the same can't usually be said of the line worker being able to do the manager's job.

 

[planegray]

Ok you got me there!

Seriously though, it isn't easy to manage, in fact there is far more stress on a manager than there is for the person on the line. Line workers don't get called at home in the middle of the night and they don't work hours they'll never get paid for and they don't take their work with them on vacation. They [line workers] don't have to worry about the labor laws and conflicts between line to line workers, other departments, and the customer. Managers are the ones held accountable and managers have to make sure everyone is doing their job and getting the work done on time and on budged. The line worker just comes to work, does what they are told, and goes home and doesn't have to think about work again for another 15 hours. The line worker gets generously compensated for working extra hours but the only compensation a manager gets is they get to keep their job. The union line worker has a team of lawyers to fight for them if they get wrongfully fired but the manager just has to suck it up and go look for another job. Chances are the manager has done the line worker's job or knows enough about it to do it themselves, but the same can't usually be said of the line worker being able to do the manager's job.

Managers should be paid less than the people they manage, they are not as important to the process.

Proof:
compare the productivity if:
the workers did not perform their duties for one day
the managers did not perform their duties for one day


Another reason managers should get paid less;
Managing people is NOT something you should do for money, you should do it because you like working with people. The end result of people who manage for money is a chain of decision making that benefits THEM, not the company that employs them

 

[intortus]

Managers should be paid less than the people they manage, they are not as important to the process.

A good manager is critical to the success of those they manage. Such managers are very rare, which is why there is such a premium. Unfortunately, this premium attracts all sorts of awful managers, too, who get to make hiring decisions about other bad managers, and so on. Quasi-governmental entities like transit authorities where there is a union to conveniently blame for everything must be very attractive, where there is so much power available with so little culpability.

 

[ucdoughboy]

Managers should be paid less than the people they manage, they are not as important to the process.

Proof:
compare the productivity if:
the workers did not perform their duties for one day
the managers did not perform their duties for one day


Another reason managers should get paid less;
Managing people is NOT something you should do for money, you should do it because you like working with people. The end result of people who manage for money is a chain of decision making that benefits THEM, not the company that employs them

Okay where do I start. If a worker doesn't do his job then you might end up with a couple of badly built products or maybe some of your trains doesn't run on time. If the manager doesn't do his job then you might end up building a product that doesn't sell, or markets to the wrong people and end up with a bankrupt company. I would say the impact of a manager on a company bottom is much greater than a single worker.

Why shouldn't managing people be done for money. It's a skill not everyone has. It's a skill pretty vital to running large companies. And last I checked, we are still a capitalist society where we expect to be paid for what we do. And if what we can do is rare and in demand then why not get paid well for it?

 

[Arminius]

Managers should be paid less than the people they manage, they are not as important to the process.

Proof:
compare the productivity if:
the workers did not perform their duties for one day
the managers did not perform their duties for one day


Another reason managers should get paid less;
Managing people is NOT something you should do for money, you should do it because you like working with people. The end result of people who manage for money is a chain of decision making that benefits THEM, not the company that employs them

Spoken like a true person who has no idea what managing is all about. A team of horses will not hitch themselves up to a cart and pull it around to where it needs to go without someone managing them. Like I said before, a good percentage of managers HAVE done the jobs of the people they manage and can step in and perform their (lets call them a line worker for simplicity) job if need be but a line worker would be absolutely, 100%, clueless and lost if they were asked to do everything a manager is asked to do. Manager's aren't just working on one task at a time like your average line worker, they are managing multiple projects, groups, reports, etc. at the same time. They also have to be good with people, negotiating, and presentation.

 

[hophead]

go labor! go union! support worker's rights, collective bargaining, civil rights!

who wants to kick a millionaire's ass?arty

 

[intortus]

A team of horses will not hitch themselves up to a cart and pull it around to where it needs to go without someone managing them.

Bad metaphors like these aren't going to help you persuade anybody.

 

[Marco_82]

Ok you got me there!
... Managers are the ones held accountable and managers have to make sure everyone is doing their job and getting the work done on time and on budged. ......

Yeah thats why all the big companies like GM and Chrysler needed Bailouts. Because there Manages are accountable. Same with banks.

And the companies with good managers don't get help in those times ...

No I'm not going there .....

But I agree if a manager is doing a good Job he should make lots of money!
But If not then he should be liable and pay for the sh#@* he did!

 

[hophead]

ceo pay in this country is insane. lots of managers get rewarded for failure because they are in a position to manipulate the numbers. managers are often way overrated and labor has been devalued for too long.

all these "educated" people never learned the history of labor rights because schools no longer teach that and their parents never installed the value. fucking shame i say...

real earnings adjusted for inflation have been under assault since the times of ronald corporate puppet reagan, prior to which people didn't carry around credit card debt, 6 year automobile payments, $20k cal berkeley yearly admission rates, skyrocketing health care costs, a shifting of the tax burden onto the working class, and on and on.

i say again who wants to kick a millionaire's ass?

 

[sixtytwo]

Spoken like a true person who has no idea what managing is all about. A team of horses will not hitch themselves up to a cart and pull it around to where it needs to go without someone managing them. Like I said before, a good percentage of managers HAVE done the jobs of the people they manage and can step in and perform their (lets call them a line worker for simplicity) job if need be but a line worker would be absolutely, 100%, clueless and lost if they were asked to do everything a manager is asked to do. Manager's aren't just working on one task at a time like your average line worker, they are managing multiple projects, groups, reports, etc. at the same time. They also have to be good with people, negotiating, and presentation.

Well, I both agree and disagree with you there. In an ideal world, managerial work is both important and necessary because people work in groups best when there's a clearly defined person taking the lead, and because it gives a sense of upward mobility to the group.

However, in many cases, horribly underqualified people are asked to be managers. This is especially true in the corporate tech industry, where MBA's and other "business" grads, who don't know the first thing about engineering, are asked to lead complicated projects.

 

[Cheyenne]

BLU, you make a good point about what managers do...perhaps you haven't worked in the corporate world enough to realize that actual functional managers that get that job done are about 5% of all managers?

Not to mention, there is the next rung up...my group had a great manager, and the group next door did too...but they both had to fight the next two levels tooth and nail to be allowed to deliver good service to the customers. Meanwhile the director is busy defending his turf, firing the hardest workers with the best ideas because they call him out on his BS.

There *are* good managers, who deserve their pay. There are a lot more duds, who kissed ass and connived to get to management because to them it's just a game.

 

[Ozymandias]

Well, I both agree and disagree with you there. In an ideal world, managerial work is both important and necessary because people work in groups best when there's a clearly defined person taking the lead, and because it gives a sense of upward mobility to the group.

However, in many cases, horribly underqualified people are asked to be managers. This is especially true in the corporate tech industry, where MBA's and other "business" grads, who don't know the first thing about engineering, are asked to lead complicated projects.

There's lots of sayings that go here...

Those that can't do, teach
Those that can't do, manage
If they can't do the work, promote them
Too many chiefs, not enough Indians.
.... I'm gonna stop there.

I'm definitely going to agree with you on the underqualified leading teams of techs though. Luckily I have an intermediate chief between me and him that is a doer rather than a tell-to-doer.

 

[Ralph Herl]

Strike averted, both sides in agreement. And I was so looking forward to rubbing some cage doors tomorrow...

 

[SurfAwave69]

There will not be a strike tomorrow...!

http://www.ktvu.com/news/20407436/detail.html

 

[kross]

Tell me about it. It just sickens me to know that if they fired the damn bean counters and their overlords who came up with this "brilliant" idea to cut everyone's pay, we wouldn't have this pay problem.

Hey sixtytwo, I'm guessing you work at UCBerkley? I work at UCDavis, and starting next month get to do my job for 7% less than I did last year, which was a considerable amount less than what I was making the year before as a union steamfitter. Our new Chancellor took a 5% cut too, how nice of her. Never mind her starting salary was 20% more than the previous Chancellor's.

All I have to say on the Union vs. non-Union is that when you start hearing "You're just lucky to have a job" from the guys at the top, we should all be nervous no matter which side of the debate we're on.