BART Strike Over, Train Service Resumes Tuesday

BART management is announcing tonight that the strike is over and that train service will resume Tuesday.

BART workers went on strike on Friday morning, wreaking havoc for Bay Area commuters who rely on the agency's trains to travel from the South Bay and other parts of Silicon Valley to the San Francisco Bay Area.

The heavy-rail public transit and subway system connects San Francisco with cities in the East Bay and suburbs in northern San Mateo County.

The work stoppage ended when BART's two striking unions submitted a new contract proposal to BART management that was accepted.

Service Employees International Union Local 1021 and Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555 worked with a federal mediator to reach the tentative agreement, which still must be approved by BART's Board of Directors and put up for a vote by the two unions.

The unions submitted a new contract offer Sunday night that included concessions related to work rules governing the use of technology but in the proposal union members "insisted on retaining work rules" that protect safety.

Flanked by politicians in Oakland tonight, union leaders and BART management announced the end of the strike that snarled Bay Area traffic and flooded alternative public transportation.

"This has got to be the last time this happens. I think everyone's fed up, no one wants to see this happen ever again," Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom said, adding that the new contract "sets a course to deal with grievances so they don't fester and create the kind of distrust" that led to the protracted negotiations over the last few months.

Newsom said that the details of that would be revealed over the coming days and weeks, but few other details of the agreement were revealed.

"This offer is more than we wanted to pay, but it is also a new path for our partnership with our workers," Crunican said. "We compromised to get to this place as did our union members.

—Bay City News Service contributed to this report