Studio Managers Fill In on Tours

Executives and secretaries put on red and black uniforms Tuesday and drove trams for the Universal Studios Tour while some of the 120 striking drivers and mechanics picketed outside the park.

“We’re doing a great job,” said Eugenie Reese, a secretary who was driving a tour vehicle inside the 420-acre park. “It’s smooth sailing.”

But Earl Bush, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 399, said the walkout would eventually cause problems for the park, which runs about 150 trams to carry the 18,000 to 24,000 daily visitors.

Workers walked off late Monday afternoon after contract negotiations led by a federal mediator broke down. The strike, called over a proposed four-year contract, revolves around two main points:

Continuation of a two-tier wage system, already in place, under which Universal pays newly hired tram drivers $15.08 an hour, $2.50 less than drivers who were hired before Aug. 1, 1985, Bush said.

In addition, the strike will not end, he said, until management agrees to withdraw a proposed one-year wage freeze. He said the union is asking for a 3.8% wage hike based on an increase in the cost of living.

A previous contract expired Sunday.

“All we are asking is that over a period of time, the new workers’ wages are brought up to the same level as the employees who’ve been with the company longer,” Bush said.

On Tuesday, about 80 pickets marched along Lankershim Boulevard and Coral Drive, the two entrances to the park. They yelled, “Don’t do it, you’re risking your lives,” to entering motorists, referring to trams driven by inexperienced drivers.

But Joan Bullard, a Universal Studio Tours spokeswoman, said executives and secretaries filling in for the strikers were given extensive training about two months ago in how to handle the open-sided trolleys. Bullard said the strike has not affected attendance thus far.

One visitor, Rick Schneider, a construction worker, said he crossed the picket line because he and his wife and three children had driven to the park from Denver. “It’s real tough to go against labor, but we came all this way and it’s not like we can come back next week,” Schneider said.

Bush said workers would continue picketing around the clock in the hope of getting late-night delivery truck drivers to honor the picket lines.