Transit District Suspends 10 Drivers : Misbehavior Alleged During Strike Called Off Saturday

With all Orange County bus routes being served for the first time in 15 days, the transit district suspended 10 drivers without pay Monday for alleged misbehavior during the two-week strike that drivers called off Saturday.

Joanne Curran, a spokeswoman for the transit district, said the 10 drivers were “suspended without pay pending further investigation” when they reported for work Monday morning.

She would not elaborate on specific charges against the drivers. But she did say that the accusations included violence, impeding service and damaging district and personal property and that the incidents allegedly occurred at or near three OCTD locations picketed during the strike.

The strike ended Saturday when members of United Transportation Union Local 19 decided to return to work without a new contract.

Juliene Smith, head of the drivers’ union, reacted angrily to the suspensions. She said the suspended drivers were not told what charges had been lodged against them.

Hearings Scheduled Monday

“All they know is that there will be hearings next Monday and Tuesday,” she said. “That’s very nice for a company that said that all it wanted was for its employees to come back to work.”

Smith said no new negotiations between union and district representatives were scheduled this week. However, she said union attorneys were preparing to go to court to try to prevent the district from enforcing provisions of the contract that district officials announced would be imposed unilaterally.

Last Friday the district, which had given striking bus drivers until Monday to return to work or lose their jobs to replacement drivers, announced that it intended to impose provisions of its final contract offer as the terms of a new contract with the drivers.

Among those provisions were clauses calling for increased drug testing, doubling the use of part-time drivers and tougher sanctions to deal with absenteeism.

Some bus drivers said Monday that it was tough to return to work without agreeing to a new contract and that financial obligations at Christmas time were a major factor in the decision to end the strike.

“Christmas puts pressure on our financial picture,” said Dave Lockman, a nine-year veteran driver. “The attitude could have been different if it had happened in July or August. At Christmastime you want to buy presents and have a tree.”

A 56-year-old driver who declined to give her name said she, like most of her colleagues, had chosen to return to work because they were afraid of losing their jobs.

“I have to make house payments,” she said.

Curran said that, except for the 10 who were suspended, all of the district’s approximately 730 drivers had returned to work Monday and that service was “running smoothly” on all 53 bus routes.

‘Back to Normal’

“Everything’s back to normal,” she said.

Although the district had no available count of the number of passengers riding buses Monday, Curran said ridership appeared “about normal for this time of the year.”

The district normally has about 112,000 boardings on an average weekday, but Curran said that number is usually lower during the Christmas holidays because more people are vacationing and schools and colleges are closed.

Curran said OCTD will not run buses on Christmas Day. The district usually suspends service on Christmas and New Year’s Day but had decided to run buses on those days.

The strike, however, impeded that plan because drivers must bid for the highly paid holiday shifts. The bus drivers returned to work too late for the bids to be processed, she said.

Curran said no decision has been made on whether to provide service on New Year’s Day.

Times staff writer Leonel Sanchez contributed to this story.