Transit workers in the Bay Area of California went on strike on Friday for the second time in three months, CNN reported. The strike shut down the country's fifth-largest train system, and is expected to affect about 400,000 northern California commuters, news reports said.
The dispute stems from long-running contract negotiations between workers' unions and management mostly concerning over wages, health care and pension plans, news reports said.
Union leaders have said the "last strike was called because management made a late push to change worker rules - the framework governing issues such as how work is assigned and what shift people can work," CNN reported.
"Basically what management did was produce, in essence, a poison pill, saying, 'Great, we made this amazing progress after six months, we have an economic framework agreement. But wait, there's more. You must take this now. At that point ... the negotiations broke down," Pete Castelli, a local executive director of the Service Employees International Union, told reporters.
The workers of BART, or Bay Area Rapid Transit, also went on a 4-day strike in July.
"We're very sorry. We understand that this strike -- what it does to the Bay Area riders, and we understand that it is a hardship. ... We apologize. We urge the public to contact the BART district and tell them to finish negotiating a fair deal with our union," Castelli added.
