Catalina Ferry Strike Reportedly Has Little Effect

As the Labor Day weekend brings to an end the summer tourist season on Santa Catalina Island, a monthlong strike against its major ferryboat company appears to have had little lasting effect, business owners and ferryboat officials say.

“One does not claim victory in a strike, but I think the company has made an important point in that it ran despite the walkout,” said Sam Sacco, a spokesman for Catalina Cruises Inc.

Sacco said his company’s business is nearly back to normal. He said there are two daily departures of the 145-foot, 700-passenger boats out of San Pedro and five daily departures out of Long Beach.

Before the Aug. 1 strike by about 100 workers, there were two additional runs from San Pedro. The company carried more than 8,000 passengers last weekend, normal for the summer, Sacco said.

Even union officials admitted that picket lines at the passenger terminals had little effect, and they are now considering a change of strategy that would shift pickets to fuel barges operated by Crowley Maritime Corp. of San Francisco, Catalina Cruises’ parent company.

Sacco said none of the 63 employees hired since the strike began will be laid off as tourism wanes. He said the new employees are being paid hourly rates of between $12.18 and $14.50, in line with the reduced wages the company sought in pre-strike negotiations with the Inland Boatman’s Union, whose members had made $14.33 to $17.11 an hour.

Kathy Brown, owner of the Busy Bee restaurant in Avalon, said that after a shortage of customers during the strike’s first week, there is “a general feeling in town that this thing is over.”

Bill Whitaker, owner of Island Rentals, which rents golf carts, the island’s major form of transportation, said business “picked up this week,” noting that by noon Thursday he had rented all 30 of his carts.

W.F. (Oley) Olsen III, general manager of the Pavilion Lodge, said hotels were never affected.

“People who make their travel plans to stay overnight would put up with the inconveniences of the strike,” he said.