Bus Drivers End Strike; Fights Mar Job Sign-Up

Orange County bus drivers ended their strike Saturday--no better off than they were Dec. 8 when they walked off the job, stranding more than 100,000 commuters.

About 500 strikers lined up to reclaim their jobs at the Orange County Transportation District headquarters in Garden Grove, where several scuffles broke out between union officials and district security personnel.

The transit district had threatened to begin hiring permanent replacements Monday if striking workers did not return. Officials at the transit agency said that regular bus service would begin Monday morning.

Juliene K. Smith, head of the Tustin-based United Transportation Union Local 19, said the decision to return to work was not a surrender to the transit district’s refusal to budge from its “last and final” contract offer of Dec. 5.

“Our returning to work has nothing to do with continuing negotiations,” she said.

At the transit agency, spokeswoman Joanne Curran said: “The drivers are coming back without a contract. . . . We welcome them back.”

More than 500 of about 700 striking drivers gathered for 45 minutes at the Santa Ana police annex Saturday, where the union’s negotiating committee recommended that the drivers return to work. No vote was taken, Smith said, and most drivers leaving the closed meeting declined to comment.

The drivers then went in a car caravan to transit district offices to sign up for their jobs.

In the parking lot and inside the building, a number of union members were assaulted with night sticks and chemical Mace as they tried to reclaim their jobs, James L. Evans, attorney for UTU Local 19, said. The transit agency’s security officers said they were attacked by union members.

The union leaders claimed that the transit officials had been informed by radio that the bus drivers were on their way to sign up for their jobs, and that the van in which several of them, including Evans, were riding was waved into the district parking lot where, they say, they were accosted.

Transit agency officials said that the mass sign-up was unnecessary, and under the ultimatum issued by James P. Reichert, agency general manager, and a sign posted at the headquarters, strikers only needed to show up for work as scheduled Monday morning to keep their jobs.

“We’re letting Garden Grove police investigate the incident,” Curran said. However, she acknowledged that security Saturday was “makeshift” and “kind of haphazardly put together,” and that company security personnel may have been “caught somewhat unaware” by the arrival of several hundred strikers.

Another official acknowledged that district officials knew that the strikers were on the way from Santa Ana after the union meeting.

The union had sought a 13% pay increase over 3 1/2 years compared with the district’s offer of 7.5% over the same period. Currently, the top wage for a driver is $13 an hour.

In a get-tough move on Friday, the district announced it had implemented some provisions of its contract proposal without the 7.5% pay increase. These provisions allow the district to increase drug testing and tighten discipline for unexcused absences. They also allow increased use of part-time drivers and the practice of contracting out routes and services to private firms. The union had objected to those provisions.

The district acted after it declared that negotiations were at an impasse. But Evans said Friday that the union would “go to court as soon as possible to challenge this. They can’t do this unless both sides declare an impasse” and negotiations, he said, were continuing.