[Photo Credit: Colleen McHugh]
The San Francisco Department of Elections announced on Monday that the Fix Muni Now campaign had submitted enough voter signatures to qualify their Muni reform measure for the ballot.
The Department of Elections conducted a random sample of 2,248 signatures of the total 74,933 submitted and, based on this statistical sampling, determined there were more than the 44,382 signatures required.
The measure, if approved by voters in November, would require the Muni operators union, TWU-250A, to engage in direct negotiations for their wages and benefits, like every other public service union in San Francisco. Currently, operator wages and benefits are guaranteed in the City Charter to be, at a minimum, the second-highest in the country. TWU-250A is the only public service union in the city that has made no concessions during the recession of the past several years, opting instead to collect an automatic raise on July 1st, less than a month after Muni service was cut by ten percent.
By restoring collective bargaining as the method by which wages and benefits are determined, the City of San Francisco will be able to address inefficient operator work rules, which a recent audit by the City Budget Analyst estimates cost the city several million dollars per year.
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