Muni to stop paying employees to work full time for the union

Muni management plans to end the practice of paying operators to do union work, Municipal Transportation Agency Executive Director Nathaniel Ford said Friday.

The six full-time union representatives will have to return to what they were hired to do in the first place, officials said. Five are Muni operators and one works in a maintenance yard, said Muni spokesman Paul Rose.

Management sent Transport Workers Union Local 250A officials a letter Thursday notifying them of the change. Management is obliged to "meet and confer" with the union, but Ford believes the change can be imposed unilaterally.

The letter went out the same day that Supervisor Sean Elsbernd submitted to the city Department of Elections nearly 75,000 signatures, hoping to qualify an initiative for the November ballot that would target pay and work rules for Muni operators to benefit management.

Mayor Gavin Newsom has recently hinted that the city would be getting tough with the union, after the rank and file twice rejected negotiated cost-saving labor concessions.

Ford said the change has but one goal, and that's to help in the agency's efforts to restore service, which was cut by 10 percent in May. He said Muni needs all the bodies it can get to put more vehicles back on the streets. The jobs are worth about $900,000 a year in pay and benefits.

Rafael Cabrera, executive vice president of the operators union, said he wasn't surprised by the latest action: "I guess they're still pissed off at us. I don't think this is going to be their last effort. It's probably going to get worse."

The union's division chairs help resolve workplace disputes, serve as a resources for the rank and file and as a liaison with management's division superintendents.

Ford expects to have the switch in place by Sept. 4, when Muni plans to restore half the service that was recently cut.

- Rachel Gordon

What's in a name: A Mission Street gas station can put the 7-Eleven logo over its existing convenience store, despite complaints by neighbors and local businesses that allowing the chain store in will hurt the community.

The Planning Commission voted 4-2 to allow owner Somil Gandhi to change the branding of the store, which he said will enable him to cut his costs and keep the station at Mission and 30th streets from going out of business.

The convenience store is already there and virtually the only thing that will change is the name over the door, Gandhi told the commissioners.

But neighbors argued that a formula retail store like 7-Eleven is "a magnet for crime." The convenience store would become another fast-food restaurant, they added, and lower costs would allow Gandhi to undercut the prices of other businesses in the area.

Those were convincing arguments for some of the commissioners. Commissioner Katherin Moore, for example, worried that allowing customers to microwave a burrito bought in the store or purchase prepared food would threaten nearby businesses.

But Commissioner Gwyneth Borden argued that the gas station was a small, locally owned business that already included a convenience store.

"There's a little bit of classism here, that 7-Eleven is not a nice enough brand to be associated with," she said. "We talk about supporting small business and there are real challenges to stay viable."

The commission ultimately approved the requested change after Gandhi agreed to close the currently 24-hour convenience store between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. Moore and Commissioner Christina Olague voted against the change.

- John Wildermuth

Reappointed: It's four more years for a pair of planning commissioners, which may not be great news for some of Mayor Gavin Newsom's development plans for the city.

The Board of Supervisors has reappointed both Katherin Moore and Hisashi Sugaya to new terms on the Planning Commission. The board has three appointments on the seven-member commission, while the mayor names four.

Moore and Sugaya, along with Christina Olague, the supervisors' third appointee, all voted last month against approving the environmental impact report for the huge Hunters Point Shipyard redevelopment plan, which Newsom has pushed.

- John Wildermuth

This article appeared on page C - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle