BART reaches out to locals to fill jobs
BART is the fabric of the community, Michael Jones told me as we settled into our seats on a train leaving 19th Street BART Station earlier this week. “If BART shuts down, everything shuts down,” he said. “If it’s not reliable, people can’t get to San Francisco and get to work on time. I’ve never been involved in a transit agency that has this much of a daytoday impact on the people that they serve on a daytoday basis. “Things here stop when BART is having problems.”
BART has a lot of problems. Just ask some of the 400,000 people who ride the trains each day.
Jones, BART’s new deputy general manager who was wearing a sports coat with a BART pin on the lapel, scanned the car we were in like a janitor. Every piece of trash, streaky liquid spill and disagreeable passenger damages BART’s reputation.
Approval ratings have tanked, as riders complain about fare evasion, filth, crime and transients seeking shelter and safety from the dangers of being on the street. Still, I feel the best place to see the Bay Area’s diversity on display is on BART.
“You see all different walks of life,” Jones said as he noticed a Fireball mini bottle underneath a seat.
Before his appointment to the $285,000ayear job, Jones was the assistant general manager of administration. He joined BART as the assistant general manager of human resources in January 2017, focusing on talent acquisition, workforce development, benefits administration and compensation programs. His team has hired 1,500 people in two years, according to BART.
He’ll need to hire many, many more. And quickly. Here’s why: Right now, about 36% of BART employees are eligible to retire. That means BART may soon have to replace 1,500 of its 4,129 employees.
That’s the key to keeping the transit agency on track.
“Not only are we attempting to replace folks that are leaving, we have the extension that is going to be opening up down in Berryessa that’s going to take people,” Jones said. “We’d love for our seasoned workers to stay for as long as possible, but the reality is that when you’re in California and you’re part of the public retirement system,
you can retire at 50 and live pretty good.”
It’s going to take more than recruiting ads on trains and in stations. That’s why Jones is going into communities where jobs are scarce, where BART fares for some are often unaffordable. Jones started a training program at Cypress Mandela Training Center in East Oakland. It’s an attempt to provide access to the wellpaying jobs that will allow people to afford to live in the communities where they were raised.
Another initiative, the Transit Career Ladders Training Program that was launched with a Federal Transit Agency grant, promotes transportation careers in lowincome and underserved communities through partnerships with local colleges.
“We’re trying to build our workforce from within,” said Jones, a 42yearold Chicago native. “We’re hiring frontline workers that are going into nonskilled positions, but they have opportunities to have a career here.
“We’re tying to move our folks through nonskilled positions, say cleaning the trains, into technician positions to where they’re making really good money in the Bay Area and can support and sustain a family.”
Jones has worked for rail systems in Chicago and Dallas, but this isn’t just another stop for Jones on the career ladder. This is like home. His wife, Saleemah Jones, is a native of East Oakland, where many black and brown residents are struggling to maintain a foothold in the rapidly changing city. Jones knows the struggle some residents face, because Saleemah, who graduated from Oakland Technical High School, “always took AC Transit, because she could never afford BART when she was growing up.”
Jones added 10 people to BART’s HR department to enhance recruitment efforts. Two are embedded with BART’s police department, which hired 50 officers this year. When BART’s board of directors approved the 2020 budget in June, they added funding for 19 new officers, dropping vacancies to 10. It’s the best police staffing in a generation, Director Bevan Dufty told me.
“Michael has been part of changing the culture and taking what I think are important steps to having a real communityconnected police department,” Dufty said. “People are going to see more improvement in our services and more of a focus on the rider. I think he really is going to help change a lot of people’s impressions about what BART is like.”
Jones wants people to feel safe taking the train into the city on a Saturday night — and then riding the last train back to the East Bay, which always brims with boisterous energy.
“If you provide a better product, which is the new trains, and you provide a better sense of security with police officers and community service officers, those things will inherently start to change,” he said.
When I left Jones, I got onto another train and soon after the door closed an argument began. A man complained that another rider’s phone was sending waves that were affecting his ears.
“Get away from me,” the man shouted as he toted his leaking 2liter bottle of soda to the other end of the car.
The fabric of the community is always unpredictable.