BART's Lead Negotiator Has a History of Illegal Behavior
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To date, BART management has sought to portray the agency's train operators and station agents as being greedy and unreasonable for demanding pay raises. But what has gone unnoticed is the fact that BART management's lead negotiator and strategist, Thomas P. Hock, works for a private transportation company that has a long history of anti-union practices. Records also show that Hock and Veolia Transportation have repeatedly run afoul of federal labor laws and were previously ordered by federal authorities to stop engaging in illegal activities.
It is unclear why the BART board decided in April to hire Hock as lead negotiator and pay him $300,000. BART board members declined to comment about Hock's contract
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However, recent events in Arizona support some of the unions' claims that Hock's true goal may be to force a crisis at BART. Last year, transit workers in Phoenix and Tempe staged a six-day strike against Veolia Transportation. Arizona's cities have privatized their bus operations, and Veolia holds the contracts. Hock led his company's campaign against its workers. It was a bruising fight that required the intervention of federal authorities.
In hearings before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Veolia was found to have engaged in "regressive, bad-faith, and surface bargaining," and numerous other unfair labor practices prior to the Phoenix bus strike. Hock was in charge at the time.
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Hock was quoted in the local media during the Phoenix and Tempe bus strikes, claiming that the unions caused thousands of commuters to wait countless hours on the curb. Part of Hock's strategy during the Phoenix bus strike was to cast the bus drivers as greedy and out of touch with the public. Hock and Veolia pointed out that "drivers in the Phoenix area are the highest paid in the Valley, earning an average of $22 per hour," according to a report in The Arizona Republic.
"Tom Hock was the cause of the strike here in Phoenix and Tempe," Bob Bean, president of the ATU in Arizona, told me. "Hock's not a negotiator. All he knows how to say is 'no.' He does not try and solve any issues."
Bean believes Hock was aiming all along to break the ATU in Arizona, not to find any common ground with the workers. "Hock was trying to take away all our benefits and everything we earned over 38 years of negotiations," said Bean. "If Hock can bust a union, he will."
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