Above- Des Patten BART Professional Chapter President and John Arantes BART Chapter President.

October 5, 2010.     The Side Letter of agreement regarding the Retiree Medical Eligibility and Cost Savings passed by a 2 to 1 margin, 192 to 86.

<click here> for the Official Election results

We want to stress to our members that this ratification does NOT mean that we are implementing the 15 year plan.

We still have many steps to complete before we must bring the final plan before the membership- AGAIN- for your approval.

We asked the District to provide documentation to help clarify the process.  <click here> for a letter from Rudy Medina-Manager of Labor Relations.

Please get involved and plan to attend your next General Membership meeting.

RME Updates-

The first meeting of the RME- Retiree Medical Eligibility committee (consisting of leaders from SEIU, ATU, and AFSCME and respective attorneys and researchers) met on January 28, 2011 to lay down ground rules and to begin the process of exploring our options- should we decide to change our current 5 year eligibility program.

The RME met with the District in Feb. and July 2011.

Since then, the District has apparently stalled.

The BART Chapter SEIU 1021 called a meeting for all the BART Unions to discuss our options.  That meeting was scheduled for Sept. 22, 2011.

We met again on October 27th, and the BART Unions (SEIU, ATU, AFCSME, BPOA, & BPMA) drafted a letter to BART's new General Manager, Grace Crunican.  The letter stated our intent to continue the process with or without the District's involvement.

We presented the letter to Grace Crunican on November 3, 2011, and we were promised a response by the next GM meeting (scheduled for December 8th.)

More on this later. . . .

What does the passage of this Side Letter mean?

<click here for the FAQs> Frequently Asked Questions

During the 2009 negotiations you may have remembered discussion around a possible change.  Currently, all BART employees enjoy a 5-year vesting period- that is, work at BART for 5 years, and you're eligible for Retiree Medical benefits for life.

If we convert from a 5 year to a 15 year plan, the District will save money, and all the BART Unions (ATU, AFSCME, BPOA and SEIU) will want to partake of that savings.

There is currently no 'off-the-shelf' vesting plan that we can present in the 2013 negotiations.  CalPERS has a 5-year plan, and a 20-year plan.

The ratification of this Side Letter will NOT automatically mean that we convert.  In order to develop a 15-year plan, it will require a collaborative effort from ALL the BART Unions and the District.  An assembly bill will have to be introduced in the State Legislature, and if/when it passes- we will need to approve of the plan before it is implemented.

Here is the Side Letter in a pdf file.  Please note that the plan is intended to apply to 'future hires."