San Francisco Area Transit Averts Strike, Reaches Union Deal

Directors of the Bay Area Rapid Transit, also known as BART, voted unanimously to adopt the agreement, which will let the Amalgamated Transit Union workers continue to receive their base salaries while eliminating BART’s contribution to a secondary pension plan, the agency said in a statement yesterday.

“With this agreement, the hundreds of thousands of Californians that rely on the services BART provides will be able to continue to conduct their every-day business without interruption,” California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a statement.

The deal also calls for a cap on health-care costs and fewer paid holidays, the agency said. The transit workers’ contracts expired June 30 and the possibility of a strike has loomed since, threatening to disrupt the daily commute of more than 300,000 people.