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Hard Feelings Lingering Between BART, Unions

OAKLAND (KCBS) - Bay Area Rapid Transit are preparing to vote soon on the tentative contract agreement amid a relationship with BART management that has been fractured by tough negotiations and the deaths of two workers during the second strike.

"You can't go out in the public and say the things they said about us and think that it's just going to be okay because we have the contract," said Antonette Bryant, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1515.

"There's going to have to be a series of conversations; there's going to have be a series of goodwill actions that we see that are met and that they are really meaning it not just something that is perfunctory."

Hard Feelings Linger Between BART and Its Unions

The sentiment is echoed by BART Board Director John McPartland.

"There is a drama between the union and the district that encompasses us all," he said.

"We should be coming together in relationship to our shared grief and our resolution that we will end up doing everything that we can to make sure that we never set ourselves up for this kind of event in the future."

But even in grief, the two sides have found conflict.

Bryant and other union leaders were offended by a memorial resolution passed by the BART board honoring the workers killed while inspecting tracks last Saturday during the strike.

Phil Matier: The State of Relations between BART, Its Unions And Commuters

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