Crossing Picket Line : Drivers Who Break Strike Pay a Price

On the first day of the Orange County bus strike, Gordon Capen expected to be called names such as “scab” as he crossed the picket line.

And with emotions running so high, the 58-year-old driver said Wednesday, he wasn’t too surprised by the car following him as he eased his big Orange County Transit District bus onto Harbor Boulevard last week.

“The guy pulled right in front of me and slowed to about three or four miles an hour,” said Capen, a nine-year OCTD veteran. “I pulled around to pass him, but he stayed right beside me. When I started to speed up, he would speed up. When I stopped. He stopped.”

Driver Lifted Hood

When the car reached the next bus stop, its driver got out, lifted the hood and poked his head under it as if working on the engine, Capen said. A supervisor aboard Capen’s bus jotted down the license-plate number and later notified police.

Wednesday was the 10th day of the strike. It has been a long and difficult period for those on both sides of the picket lines. For striking drivers, there is the torment of an uncertain job future and wages slipping away as Christmas approaches.

For those who have crossed the picket lines, the concerns are different.

Capen and fellow driver Kenneth W. Woodley, 37, talked about those concerns Wednesday.

“We’ve both been expelled from the union for crossing the picket lines,” Capen said. “And we’ve already been told by the chairman, Juliene Smith (of the United Transportation Union Local 19), that if the union accepts the contract, we’ll be out of our jobs in a year and a half.”

Honored Strike for 6 Days

Woodley said he honored the strike the first six days before returning to work four days ago. He said he resigned as a union vice chairman and withdrew from an election runoff the day before he returned to work because he didn’t want to embarrass the union “by having a union official cross the picket line.”

“But I got to tell you, it hurts every time I have to cross that picket line,” Woodley said. “I’ve always been pro-labor and have stood up for the rights of workers.”

He was part of the walkout during the district’s 1977 strike and for more than four years was on the union’s negotiating team. But he doesn’t believe the current strike is in the drivers’ best interest.

Woodley criticized the current union administration and its negotiating team, specifically mentioning the vote the night before the strike began, when union members voted on the strike and a contract ratification at the same time.

“If we didn’t want the contract, it meant we would automatically go on strike,” Woodley said. “We took the vote like at 11:40 p.m., and when it failed, we went out at midnight. That’s dumb. We should have voted just to ratify and let the district respond. That would have allowed us to continue working, and we could have kept voting on new contract offers.

“To be truthful, if I felt the strike was really necessary I would have been on the strike line.”

Talked With Spouses

Both Woodley and Capen said that, before returning to work, they discussed the situation with their spouses.

Capen said: “Hey, I don’t care what people call me as long as they don’t touch me, my car, my wife or my home.”

At home, he plugs in a telephone answering machine to record crank calls. “But all we’ve gotten is someone who calls, hears it’s a machine and then hangs up.”

Capen’s single crank call was from a friend’s wife, who called at 3 a.m. and told him: “You know, Gordon, I’m a Christian, and I’m praying awfully hard not to hate you.”

For Woodley, the abuse has been limited to name calling, he said.

Both have been promised job security by James P. Reichert, district general manager, they said. “He personally called each of us on Saturday and said we would have no problems keeping our jobs,” Capen said.

Personal finances were a consideration, each said. Both are at the district’s top $13-an-hour level and earn at least $30,000 a year. Woodley said he had taken an extended period of sick leave last summer after being injured in an accident on his way home from work and that ate away at his savings.

“This is near Christmas, you know, and that’s the problem with this strike--nobody knows how long it’s going to last,” Capen said.