22 To Be Accreted to BART Professional Unit

Published on August 25th 2011

On August 2 SEIU 1021 filed A Petition for Clarification of Existing Bargaining Unit with the State of California, Department of Industrial relations.

This petition asks that 22 currently unrepresented BART professional employees be accreted to the Professional Chapter. Des Patten, BART Professional Chapter President, Liz Espinoza, Organizing Coordinator, and Koko Khiang, also of our Organizing Department, worked to make this happen. Koko's work with researching and creating charts was integral to the campaign.

Currently waiting for a response from BART management, Des says "We are expecting them to disagree." Des Patten has been a union member for 23 years, becoming chapter president January 1, 2010. He's also Co-chair of the Alameda County COPE Committee and works as an instructor teaching Train Control, that is, how to repair the computers that tell the trains what to do. "I really enjoy teaching Train Control."

Accretion is an infrequent process. For Des, the hard part was deciding which positions could be included in the accretion process. His favorite moment was when the district acknowledged that they had received the documents and were working on it. "The challenge now is just to wait."