Memorial Day weekend marks the unofficial start to the summer tourism season. But there could be a threat to one of San Francisco’s biggest attractions: the boat tours to Alcatraz Island. Thom Jensen reports.
Memorial Day weekend marks the unofficial start to the summer tourism season. But there could be a threat to one of San Francisco’s biggest attractions: the boat tours to Alcatraz Island.
Alcatraz boat tours attract more than 1.5 million visitors to the island yearly. On Saturday morning, the striking cruise workers put the boat tours on a four-hour hold by picketing at Pier 33 in San Francisco.
The union’s strike forced Alcatraz City Cruises to clear their boats until it was over.
San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin was there to show his support for union workers, who said that management has not negotiated fairly and dragging out talks for a year and a half.
“This is a working people’s waterfront. It has been for a hundred years and it is time for Alcatraz Cruises to stop stalling,” he said.
But union president Robert Estrada said management didn’t deliver anything tangible and continually drags out discussions without movement on key issues.
“We’ve been waiting for a response to our economic package for months, months and months, and we were told we would have a response to our economic proposal at the last meeting,” he said.
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The boats were back up and running towards Alcatraz just after noon, but Estrada said a full strike is not out of the question. The two sides return to the negotiating table on June 4 but the union’s hopeful management will come to them with an agreement before then.
“There are stakeholders who are directly Alcatraz City Cruises, and we would hope that there are conversations happening right now between those stakeholders and those who hold the power to get this done,” he said.
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Alcatraz Cruises passengers said they hope management does come back with better pay and benefits because they know it’s hard to get by in the Bay Area.
A spokesperson with Alcatraz City Cruises released the following statement on Saturday:
“We are disappointed the union would threaten our passengers, partners and the community with a potential disruption of those services. Please take comfort that this will have no impact on our operations.
We are committed to continuing to bargain in good faith and are working diligently with our crew to reach a mutually beneficial agreement.”
