I could not disagree more with your March 3 editorial opposing the banning of BART strikes. Instead of realizing that not all jobs and employers are the same, you paint them, and the effects of strikes against them, with a broad brush. This complete lack of critical analysis leads to the ridiculous conclusion that BART strikes should not be banned. Unfortunately, this type of uncritical thinking permeates the left when it comes to the issue of unions.

First, BART’s function is far more than just moving people around, as you put it. Every person on BART is one fewer person driving, which is good for the planet, including but not limited to combating the effects of global warming/climate change. Many people who were forced off of BART during strikes drove cars instead. I assume you are seriously concerned about the environment. If so, your priority regarding transportation should be getting people out of cars.

Second, BART trains are ridiculously crowded, run too seldom on some lines and have become unreliable. Again, this causes many people to drive who would otherwise take BART. Meanwhile, money that should be used to fund the system is instead being taken by grossly overpaid BART workers — from the managers to the janitors — who are paid with our taxes and BART fares. The workers whose “right” to strike you are defending are doing relatively easy, unskilled, nondangerous work and are being paid approximately twice as much as the average Bay Area worker. If this were about private industry and didn’t affect large issues such as the environment, it would be fine for workers to strike and get as much money and benefits as possible. But when overpaid workers cause a public transit system to be starved for funds and then want to strike for even more money, saying they should have that right has no merit.

Finally, the irony of BART strikes is that people who make $80,000 per year prevent people who make $30,000 per year from getting to work. In what universe is this fair or reasonable? If anything, you should be championing the lower income people who ride BART, not the wealthier ones who strike.

Blind and dogmatic pro-union-no-matter-what attitudes should be relegated to the dustbin of history. In some jobs, such as lower-paid service workers, unions are necessary and make sense, and in all private industry, the right to strike needs to be upheld. But most, if not all, public employees in California are very well paid and otherwise compensated, often to the point of being grossly overpaid and overcompensated which is bankrupting the local and county governments that have to pay these outrageous pensions.

It is vital when analyzing any issue to analyze it on its own merits. Saying that “[s]trikes … are meant to be inconvenient and costly” misses the point: Do you really want to cost the environment and lower-paid workers just so higher paid ones, who already make too much money, can get more pay?

Jeff Hoffman is an environmentalist and attorney and a resident of Berkeley.

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