New Hiring Planned if Bus Drivers Call Strike

If county bus drivers strike next week rather than accept a pay cut, the Orange County Transportation Authority will immediately hire new drivers and take steps to privatize bus service, the agency’s board said Monday.

“We know this will be hard for the drivers to accept,” Board Chairman William G. Steiner said in announcing the decision after a closed-door meeting, “but it’s important to protect the continuity of service. These are difficult times; we hope the coach operators accept the contract.”

Mike Patton, a spokesman for Teamsters Union Local 952, which represents the county’s 750 bus drivers, called the board’s action a “cynical” attempt to force the drivers’ hands.

“I’m incensed,” Patton said. “They’re not even allowing us to negotiate. What they’re doing is obscene; I have the feeling that we’re being waltzed into a situation where our backs are to the wall.”

The bus drivers, who ferry about 50,000 passengers a day throughout Orange County, have twice rejected OCTA’s proposed contract and have scheduled a strike vote for Saturday, just two days before their current contract expires. The votes are expected to be counted by late Saturday night, and a strike could occur as early as Monday.

Among other things, the rejected contract would reduce the drivers’ current $17.06 hourly wage by 46 cents, require them to pay up to $140 more a month for health benefits and decrease their break times.

Transit officials have said that the reductions are necessary to help pay for a $38-million shortfall expected next year after that much in OCTA funds is transferred to the county to help it recover from bankruptcy. The bus drivers have argued that an unfair amount of the county’s burden is falling on them.

Yet OCTA officials said Monday that they are prepared to go forward with contingency plans if a strike is called. If that happens, according to the resolution passed by the board, the agency’s staff is authorized to “stop payment of wages and benefits to [striking] coach operators . . . extend offers of employment to replacement operators” and “request bids from private sector companies” to begin operating some routes.

About 170 would-be replacement operators have already answered help-wanted ads placed by OCTA earlier this month, said William Hodge, the agency’s director of external affairs. About 25 of them, he said, are scheduled to begin four-week training classes next week. And many of the agency’s administrators are trained and licensed to drive buses in the event of a work stoppage.

“It will take a little while to organize the process,” Hodge said, “but we will do it as quickly as we can.”

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Should the drivers vote to strike, Hodge said, transit officials will make their first priority maintaining core routes such as those along Harbor Boulevard, Bristol Street and Westminster Avenue.

The agency will also maintain special services for elderly and disabled passengers, as well as routes that feed Metrolink lines. Then, Hodge said, “we will put the rest of the system back together as quickly as we can, using replacement drivers and putting some of it out to bid.”

Monday’s developments angered drivers, some of whom picketed the board meeting at the county Hall of Administration.

“This was not negotiation,” driver Irv Geller told the board, “it was dictation. Privatization would be a disservice to the people of Orange County.”

Terry Crane, a bus driver for 10 years, said he would vote to go on strike despite the board’s action.

“I think it’s pretty brutal and dehumanizing,” he said, “and it’s going to put a lot of families in a real financial bind. But I’ll vote to strike because I really won’t have a decent job anyway if they lower the pay.”

And Sam Blatter, an 11-year driver, reacted with sarcasm to news of the board’s decision. “Tough talk, isn’t it?” he said. “The county is broke and they want to put 700 drivers on welfare? That’s real smart.”

Times staff writer Anna Cekola contributed to this report.