Key Issues in Bus Strike Are Focus of Other Labor Disputes in U.S.

When Orange County bus drivers went on strike last Monday, they were not alone. Two thousand miles away in Columbus, Ohio, bus drivers also have walked off the job, mainly for the same reasons.

Around the country, in the public and private sectors alike, workers and their employers increasingly are at odds over the same five issues that separate bus drivers and the transit district in Orange County: The hiring of more part-time personnel, elimination of automatic cost-of-living adjustments, the contracting out of services to private companies, employee absenteeism and drug testing of employees by management-selected labs.

“All those issues are pretty lively now across the country,” said John Dash, veteran national labor relations consultant.

“I think it’s an industry trend,” said Robert Batchelder, legal counsel for the American Public Transit Assn. in Washington.

According to union representatives, business leaders and economists, unions are losing ground on most of these issues.

Here’s how they stack up in the Orange County bus strike:

Wages

Tustin-based United Transportation Union Local 19, which represents the Orange County Transit District’s 732 bus drivers, sought a 10% pay hike over three years. The district offered 7.5% over 3 1/2 years. Top pay for district drivers is $13 an hour.

Surveys of 1986 employer bargaining objectives by the Bureau of National Affairs, a Washington research organization, showed that most transit agencies and industries generally planned to increase salaries 2% to 4% this year, and projected similar annual pay hikes in the near future, or about 6% to 12% over a three-year span, based on current wage settlement trends.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, most of the 459,000 bus drivers nationwide work for local government agencies or schools and earned about $8.45 an hour in 1984, the last year for which average salary data is available. However, top pay for urban-area drivers averaged about $11.45 an hour.

Now, top-salaried drivers earn $11.86 an hour in Houston, $13.57 in Minneapolis-St. Paul and $12.43 in San Diego. None of the contracts in these cities includes automatic cost-of-living adjustments.

Cost-of-Living Raises

Elsewhere, top salaries for drivers were $13.26 an hour in Los Angeles, $12.92 in Seattle, $13.26 in Kansas City, $12.21 in San Francisco, $11.45 in Milwaukee and $14.32 in Santa Clara County. All of these contracts have cost-of-living adjustments that add a few cents per hour based on increases in the consumer price index, usually computed quarterly. But the adjustments have been a major issue in each case, with management getting closer each year to eliminating them.

“I think it’s been an industry trend, a management objective,” Batchelder said. “It’s a matter of saving money, a matter of getting out of automatic wage escalators, taking away a ticking time bomb.”

“There’s a trend toward doing away with them because management likes to know exactly how much money to set aside for salaries, far enough in advance to facilitate good planning,” said Marlene Heyser, the OCTD’s negotiator in the strike.

Nationally, the number of union members with contracts that include cost-of-living adjustments dropped from a record high of 61.2 million in 1976 to 50 million in 1985, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Less than 20% of the contracts settled so far this year contain the adjustments.

Earlier this year, the Communications Workers of America ended a three-week strike against the American Telephone and Telegraph Co. by accepting an 8% wage hike and agreeing to forgo cost-of-living adjustments.

Still, the adjustments are a big issue at the negotiating table. The Southern California Rapid Transit District attempted unsuccessfully to eliminate them during bargaining sessions with union members last year. Metro, the bus system in Seattle, has had a similar experience, and management’s attempts to eliminate the adjustments are a major sticking point in negotiations between drivers and Santa Clara County Transit.

Hiring Part-Timers

The OCTD wants to increase the use of part-time drivers from the current 10% to 20% within three years. The drivers offered to accept 15%.

” . . . Transit districts with high percentages of part-time drivers have much higher rates of turnover, less training, low cost-effectiveness and fewer experienced drivers,” argued Juliene Smith, general chairwoman of United Transportation Union’s Local 19.

But the transit district’s Heyser said part-timers benefit the district by permitting more efficient scheduling of drivers during peak commuting hours.

The Columbus strike involves the same dispute.

Seattle’s Metro has a contract that allows 50% of its work force to be part-time, the highest level in the transit industry. A recent contract involving San Bernardino bus drivers permits 25% of the work force to be part-timers. A contract in San Diego allows management to increase the use of part-timers from 10% of the work force to 12%, and from 25 hours to 30 hours per week. In Los Angeles, the contract negotiated last year allows management to increase the use of part-timers from 10% to 15%, and from 25 hours to 30 hours per week.

“It’s been the basic position that the part-time jobs have been used to replace full-time positions to save money, and the problem is that part-timers can’t support a family,” said Laurence D. Steinsapir, a Los Angeles-based lawyer for several labor unions.

Last September, a report by the National Assn. of Working Women said a dramatic increase in part-time employment nationally was creating an unstable economy because it creates groups of working poor with little chance of advancement.

About 20% of all bus drivers work part time, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and about 75% of the people entering the profession for the first time are part time.

Privatization

“Most bus systems don’t have privatization,” Heyser acknowledged in an interview. But she added that the Reagan Administration has been pushing recipients of urban mass-transit grants, such as the Orange County district, to contract out more route service to private carriers.

At this time, no regular district routes are operated by private companies except Dial-a-Ride, a van service that picks up and delivers passengers by appointment within zones of only a few square miles each.

In San Diego County, transit officials attempted unsuccessfully last year to win union acceptance of contracting out for some regular bus routes. It is a major issue in the Santa Clara County and Columbus, Ohio, contract talks.

Jay Roth, a Los Angeles-based labor lawyer, said privatization is a relatively new trend in labor contracts. He argued that contracting out bus routes is unfair to consumers because the routes are awarded exclusively to one company whose fares are sometimes subsidized by tax revenues. Exclusive routes mean riders have no alternative, even if service deteriorates and fares rise. The consumer has little recourse, Roth said, because consumer complaints about service fall through the cracks.

Roger Snoble, general manager of San Diego’s bus system, strongly disagreed. Snoble proudly boasts that his bus system is operated by a corporation, not a transit district, and that it is run “just like a business.” Costs can be reduced through competitive bidding for regular routes, he argued.

Surveys by the Bureau of National Affairs show that the employer’s right to contract out work is becoming a common feature of U.S. labor agreements. But the same studies also indicate that it’s usually accompanied by clauses that prohibit such contracting if it causes layoffs.

Heyser, the negotiator for the OCTD, said there are no immediate plans for the district to contract out regular bus routes, but she added that the district needs such authority for the future.

Absenteeism

The district claims that its drivers average about 28 days of unscheduled absences per year and wants to cut this by half, in part by changing a contract provision that allows employees to start off with a clean attendance slate every six months. That provision, officials said, makes it difficult to discipline problem drivers. About one-fourth of the drivers are responsible for 80% of the unexcused absences, according to district officials.

The union, however, argues that there’s no attendance problem.

In Los Angeles, RTD drivers average 32 days of unscheduled absences, 45% higher than the average of other large transit systems, according to a recent audit by the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission. As a result of the audit and the threat of losing state aid, RTD directors last month set a goal of reducing absenteeism by nearly 20% over the next three years.

Transit officials nationwide said they are attempting to improve efficiency by reducing the number of paid sick days and by increasing disciplinary measures for absence abuses.

Even in Santa Clara County, where bus drivers have an absentee rate half that of OCTD’s, management insists that improvement is needed.

In Orange and Los Angeles counties, the transit districts have counseling programs for drivers who have poor attendance records, and disciplinary hearings are held before termination.

Drug Testing

The OCTD already requires incident-related drug testing based on reasonable suspicion and probable cause. Now the district wants drivers to undergo drug testing before the state renews their licenses, at a lab chosen by the district.

“Management has selected one laboratory to do all the testing and prohibits employees from having the opportunity to obtain second opinions from other qualified laboratories,” Smith said. “These testing labs can have as much as a 30% error factor on positive findings.”

But Heyser argues that the district already rechecks positive findings before using them as the basis for disciplinary action. And she said drivers already have the right to bring in a second opinion at dismissal hearings.

Such disputes are being arbitrated at Santa Clara County Transit and in Columbus, where Fred Thivener, the president of the Transport Workers Union Local 208, claims that management fired two drivers before implementing a drug therapy program required under the existing contract.

Similar programs are available to drivers in most large districts, including Orange County.

Bus drivers in Santa Clara County objected strenuously to drug testing prior to renewing their licenses last year but decided not to strike over the issue.

In Seattle, such tests are required only when there’s a clear decline in job performance or reasonable suspicion because of an accident. “We’ve had a minimum problem and the union’s not going to bring it up for discussion,” said Metro personnel director Eugene Matt.

Labor lawyers said most disagreement focuses on random testing, which has been rejected by judges in most court challenges.

Postal workers and professional football players have threatened to strike over random testing. Currently, no transit agency uses random tests, according to the American Public Transportation Assn.