Contract Snag May Trigger RTD Walkout

A last-minute dispute over interpretation of one clause in a tentative contract agreement between the Southern California Rapid Transit District and its 1,800 mechanics and maintenance workers has led to the “strong possibility” of a strike by those workers, the head of the mechanics union said Thursday.

Jerome C. Long, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1277, said his members are reluctant to walk off their jobs after reaching what they had at first believed was a satisfactory agreement with the RTD over a new contract.

But as union members voted Wednesday on whether to accept or reject the proposed contract --already agreed to by union leaders last weekend--a disagreement over the interpretation of a cost-of-living adjustment clause threw the whole matter into a state of confusion.

“As far as I’m concerned, the whole damn deal is off,” Long said Thursday after declaring that the union has no intention of renegotiating the contract with RTD officials. Long said the union members’ ballots have been sealed until the labor dispute is resolved.

Asked if his members were ready to go out on strike, Long said it is “a strong possibility.” Mechanics and maintenance workers were last sidelined during a five-day strike in 1982 by RTD bus drivers and clerks.

Some rank-and-file members were also unhappy about the sudden turnabout.

“I thought we’d have a contract today,” said Marvin Hakola, a mechanic at the RTD’s East Los Angeles bus facility. “Now this throws things out of kilter. Everybody’s disappointed.”

“Nobody wants a strike. You’re a fool if you want to go out,” said Carl Winfrey, another mechanic. “But I think they (the RTD) tried to give us a snow job.”

Legal steps needed to follow through on a strike threat dim the prospect of an imminent walkout, said RTD President Nikolas Patsaouras, who called the problem a difference over “technical language” in the contract.

But after emerging from a 40-minute closed-door meeting with his fellow board members, Patsaouras said district officials are not treating the strike threat lightly. He said he hopes that both sides still could iron out their differences.

“Until the ink gets on the paper, there is a concern on the part of the district,” he said. “Until both parties sign the contract, there will be concern all along because we don’t want a strike.”

Earlier Accord

Earlier this week, both RTD and union negotiators were in accord over the proposed 39-month contract that was hammered out during a 12-hour bargaining session that ended near dawn last Saturday.

The contract did not call for a wage increase over the next three years because Long said his members recognized that the RTD, faced with an expected loss of a local transit subsidy and a possible cut-off of federal operating funds, was strapped for money.

The sticking point came over the question of cost-of-living adjustments.

When the union and RTD negotiators met Wednesday for what was expected to be a routine final review of the settlement, they discovered a major difference in how each side was interpreting the cost-of-living clause. That provision calls for a 3% minimum for cost-of-living raises over the first two years of the contract and a flat 3.5% hike in the contract’s third year.

Focus of Dispute

The dispute centers on how the percentage increases would be computed--whether they would be calculated as percentages of hourly wages or in accordance with a complicated formula based on government cost-of-living figures.

Union leaders said they believed, and had told workers, that the hourly wage base would be used. That would have given workers more money than raises calculated on the basis of the complex formula, which RTD officials said they understood had been agreed upon.

The disparity between the two views represents a significant dollar difference, Long said, although both he and the RTD would not disclose dollar figures.

Day-to-Day Basis

The union is operating on a day-to-day extension of the contract which expired Sunday. It would have to give the RTD five days’ notice before deciding to end the pact and the RTD could still ask for state help in obtaining a 60-day injunction if a strike is threatened.

The district’s drivers, who also have threatened to strike, are in the midst of a court-ordered “cooling-off” period that expires at midnight on April 21. Talks for drivers are scheduled to resume Tuesday.