Senator Tom Berryhill (R-Twain Harte) has co-authored Senate Bill 423, legislation that will protect California’s public transportation systems by prohibiting public transit employees from going on strike.

“Mass transit is essential to California’s well-being and economy. The law already prevents essential workers such as police and fire officials from striking; it makes sense to expand that to include public transit employees,” said Berryhill. “What’s more essential than a region’s main mode of transportation? The BART strikes this summer and the previous Los Angeles public transit strikes turned our roads into a parking lot making it impossible for kids to get to school, people to their jobs, and goods to market – a situation that was completely avoidable if this legislation had been in place.”

The Secretary of State’s office estimates California has 1.3 billion transit trips per year governed by some 400 transit authorities.

“These public transit services must be protected and the best way to do it is to ensure that any negotiations between management and workers are even handed. Right now the unions hold all the cards, as we saw in the BART strikes last year, with the mere threat of paralyzing a region.

“I think we have a good balance in SB 423. It is a moderate approach that protects the worker’s rights as well as those of the men, women and children dependent on buses, metro trains, light rail, para-transit and other services to get around,” Berryhill concluded.

Senator Berryhill represents the counties of Amador, Calaveras, Fresno, Madera, Mariposa, Mono, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, parts of Sacramento and Tuolumne. For additional information about Senator Berryhill, visit his website at www.senate.ca.gov/berryhill.