The State - News from Sept. 11, 1987

More than 2,200 Nevada Test Site workers honored picket lines set up by 121 striking bus drivers and refused to report to work at the nation’s nuclear testing grounds. The number absent from work was the highest since drivers for the Las Vegas-Tonopah-Reno Stage Lines struck Aug. 15. The drivers transport about 3,000 workers daily to the site 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, where about 8,300 people are employed. The 2,207 missing workers were among 2,549 employees of Reynolds Electrical and Engineering Co., the site’s largest contractor. The Energy Department said the absences have not affected the nuclear testing program. Workers have been transported to the site in private cars or in buses driven by substitute drivers. The drivers claim that the company wants to cut their pay up to $139 per week from an average of $560.