Where is the Golden Gate Bridge District Donor Wall?

The image below was on the Golden Gate Bridge Highway & Transportation District website on January 13, 2012. As of today, the image is no longer there and the date of the last update is still January 13, 2012.

Donor Wall Image courtesy of Golden Gate Bridge Highway & Transportation District

”…There will be a NEW display installed at the Plaza inscribed with the wording/text of all of the bricks. Below is an artist’s rendering of the tribute.”— GGBH&TD website on June 8, 2012 (identified as “posted January 13,  2012″)

I am certain about the date and information because I posted an article that day about the Joseph Strauss Legacy Circle.

Where is my Brick? —The Joseph Strauss Legacy Circle

The Joseph Strauss statue
Photo © Allan G. Smorra

The last echoes of the 75th Anniversary Celebration of the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge have faded away. A talented army of volunteers, supporters and Corporate Partners came together to make a memorable event unforgettable.

25 years ago a similar mission was underway to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge. A major part of that celebration was the construction of a commemorative brick walkway financed by the sales of precision inscribed paving bricks.

Unfortunately, this walkway was removed on January 18, 2012. Construction of a new Bridge Pavilion building required that current Building Codes be met and the Conservancy, with the approval of the GGB, decided to remove the 50th Anniversary Brick Walkway.

Assurances were made to the people who purchased bricks that although the bricks could not be saved, the Bridge would implement “…several alternative measures to preserve the 50th anniversary bricks by other means”.

Video Coverage of Bridgeworkers Picketing Janet Reilly’s House

“March 22, 2012 at the home of Board President Janet Reilly in San Francisco.
The upper class neighborhood of Sea Cliff, home to the “One Percent” and Janet Reilly, President of the Board of Directors of The Golden Gate Bridge & Transportation District, is seldom the scene of a workers demonstration. Reilly’s neighbors were shocked to see a picket line of ironworkers, teamsters, electricians, boatmen and women, ferry captains, laborers, mechanics and other hard working folk marching up and down at the iron gate leading to the Reilly mansion. These workers, who run and maintain the Golden Gate Bridge, Busses and Ferries were protesting to defend their health benefits and conditions.

More than 380 union workers employed by the Golden Gate Bridge Transportation District have been negotiating almost one year without reaching an agreement, even though management admits the unions have granted monetary and benefit concessions that exceed the District’s demands. What is the holdup? Management, led by Board President Janet Reilly, is now on a right wing ideological campaign to force a form of health benefit premium sharing that will penalize employees with families. The workers are fighting to keep their health care affordable for families. Management is also demanding cuts in current retirees’ vested health care benefits.”

—Film by Expert in a Box Video. www.youtube.com/expertinaboxvideo

Bridgeworkers Picket Janet Reilly’s House

 

Disclaimer: The following account is mine alone and is not meant to convey the views of the GGB Labor Coalition or its individual Unions/members. I was there and this is what I experienced.

—Allan G. Smorra

 

Picket sign outside Janet Reilly”s House

On the evening of March 22, 2012 members of the Golden Gate Bridge Labor Coalition gathered outside the home of Janet Reilly, President of the Board of Directors of the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District, to protest the lack of a contract after more than a year of negotiations.

The District Board of Directors is insisting that the workers give more in the form of cost-sharing and reforms on vested retiree benefits. The proposal is to put retirees into a plan where they can only access the ever-shrinking pool of Medicare-only doctors. The cost of this new plan is not available.

Janet Reilly interviewed during Informational Picket.
Photo by Allan G. Smorra

Currently, retirees have access to the same medical plans that active employees use. This enables the retiree to keep up their relationship with their current doctors/choose new ones within their respective plan if needed. This was part of the package that they agreed to when they came to work at the bridge.

At the table, unions have offered concessions and have been told by management that the District’s financial needs have been met. However, the District is insisting on principle, not need, that union members pay unaffordable health care premiums. The Golden Gate Bridge Board have insisted on concessions while giving non-union employees raises.

More than 380 employees have worked, in good faith, without a contract, since July 2011. They are asking to have the promises made to them honored. The District’s public “face” certainly does not match their actions.

What Would Joseph Strauss Do?

Joseph Strauss Memorial, Copyright: Steven Pavlov

“You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird… So let’s look at the bird and see what it’s doing — that’s what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.”             —Richard Feynman

Q: What is the difference between “Permanence” and “Lasting Recognition”?

A: 25 years.

In 1987, as part of a program to upgrade the visitor’s area at the Golden Gate Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge District raised money by selling “precision inscribed paving bricks carrying the names of people from all over the world”. Purchased from the Golden Gate Bridge Gardens, Inc., by March 1988 a total of 7,416 bricks were installed in a new garden setting on the East side of the Toll Plaza.

Golden Gate Bridgeworkers Protest at 75th Anniversary Events

Without a contract, as many as 100 union workers held a protest last evening at Fort Mason during the first of many celebrations commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge.

All is not well at the Second-happiest-place-on-earth. After 38 meetings, over ten months of negotiations, GGB officials are unwilling to move past the first item on their agenda: Healthcare cuts to active and retired employees.

380 members of 19 unions make up a Coalition that has exceeded the District’s monetary target of budget savings. What is at stake is the District’s demand that the workers give more in the form of cost-sharing and reforms on vested retiree benefits. The proposal is to put retirees into a plan where they can only access the ever-shrinking pool of Medicare-only doctors. The cost of this new plan is not available.

Currently, retirees have access to the same medical plans that active employees use. This enables the retiree to keep up their relationship with their current doctors/choose new ones within their respective plan if needed. This was part of the package that they agreed to when they came to work at the bridge.