Bus Walkout Strands Travelers : Transportation: Eighty percent of the nationwide bus system shuts down. Replacement workers are being hired.

By BOB BAKER

March 3, 1990 12 AM PT

TIMES LABOR WRITER

Dozens of passengers in Orange County were stranded Friday as Greyhound Lines Inc.’s drivers went on strike after their contract expired, shutting down at least 80% of the country’s only nationwide bus system.

“I’ve never seen it like this before,” said Bernice Koch, who waited three hours at the Anaheim terminal for a bus to San Diego. “It’s terrible. It’s chaotic.”

Greyhound executives, who spent the past two weeks recruiting non-union drivers, said they were servicing main routes with replacement drivers and would “make every attempt” to fully rebuild the system by month’s end as more new drivers were added.

A company spokeswoman said that 20% of the buses were in service Friday, manned by 700 new drivers. But she declined to predict if that figure will grow over the weekend.

Bus depots in Anaheim and Santa Ana cut departures by more than half. Service by two Orange County Transit District lines to downtown Los Angeles, which are contracted to Greyhound, was cut by one-third, OCTD spokeswoman Joanne Curran said.

The Dallas-based company carried 22 million passengers last year, an average of about 60,000 a day. It is particularly crucial to low-income travelers who live in smaller communities. Greyhound is the only intercity transportation in 9,000 of its 9,500 destinations, and half of its ridership comes from homes where the annual income is less than $15,000.

The Amalgamated Council of Greyhound Local Unions, which represents the company’s 6,300 drivers and 3,075 office and maintenance workers in 19 local unions, ordered its members to strike at 11 p.m. PST Thursday when a three-year contract expired.

The union accused Greyhound of bad-faith bargaining for refusing to modify an initial three-year contract offer that had been solidly rejected by a rank-and-file vote. The company accused drivers, who now average $24,700 a year, of asking for wage hikes that could be financed only through a fare increase. Each side accused the other of distorting its positions.

Negotiations, which had continued through the week and were augmented by a federal mediator Thursday night, ceased when the strike began.

The work stoppage pits two legacies of the 1980s that are clashing increasingly in contemporary collective bargaining: a new owner who borrowed heavily to buy the company and is now burdened by large debt payments, and a union that made substantial wage concessions in two past contracts and now wants to reclaim much of what it gave up.

But all of this was lost on passengers with more immediate concerns.

“I feel upset--very bad, tired, angry, “ Garden Grove resident Eduardo Zabala said after waiting almost six hours at the Anaheim station for a bus to Tijuana. The station, “should have been closed when they knew there was going to be a strike.”

Passengers slumped in seats for two, three and even four hours at the Santa Ana and Anaheim stations. When buses did arrive, some were crammed full and took only passengers who were willing to stand in the aisle.

Greyhound was last struck by drivers in 1983 for seven weeks in a dispute that completely shut down the system for the first two weeks. At the time, the company was owned by Greyhound Corp., a diversified conglomerate with the financial resources to absorb a long strike.

In 1987, the parent corporation sold the bus business to a Texas investor group led by Fred G. Currey, who subsequently bought Greyhound’s remaining national competitor, Trailways Corp.

Both bus companies were a shambles. Falling fares on deregulated airlines had drastically cut bus ridership. The best deal drivers could get when they settled their strike in 1983 was a 7.8% pay cut over three years. In 1987, the union agreed to even sharper cuts--23% over three years. Those concessions allowed Currey to slash fares and attract more business.

After losing $17 million in 1988, Greyhound finally made a small profit of about $1 million last year, only about 1% on revenue of $1 billion. The company is regarded as financially troubled because, in addition to its operating expenses, it must make payments on more than $370 million in long-term debt resulting from the 1987 acquisition.

Late last year, Greyhound offered the union a new three-year contract that included what the company described as a 6.9% increase in wages and benefits in the first year.

Union members voted 92% against that offer on Jan. 26. The union has refused to disclose its demands. According to Greyhound, the union first sought $400 million in pay and benefit increases over three years, about six times as much as Greyhound offered and the equivalent of a 33% first-year pay hike. The union this week cut that demand roughly in half, according to Greyhound.

GREYHOUND ROUTES

OCTD runs contracted to Greyhound

* Huntington Beach to downtown Los Angeles: Normal 13 morning runs reduced to 8; evening return runs reduced to 8.

* Fullerton to downtown Los Angeles: Normal 3 morning runs reduced to 1; afternoon return runs reduced to 1.

Information on times: (714) 636-RIDE, Ext. 3675

COMMERCIAL

SANTA ANA TERMINAL:

* North to Los Angeles: Normal 11 runs reduced to 5.

10:15 a.m.

12:25 p.m.

2:05 p.m.

8:15 p.m.