A Mountain Region’s Driving Concerns

On Day 13 of the transit strike, there came flickering hope. An emergency meeting was held at the senior center. Thirty-four people showed up, many of them expressing frustration and anger.

“Game-playing,” charged Bill Piercy, business representative for the Teamsters Local 572, based in Carson.

“Showboating,” replied Neal Hertzmann, chairman of the Mountain Area Regional Transit Authority (MARTA) board of directors.

Yet, the mere fact that they were all in the same room Sept. 9 was a step forward in the standoff. While farther to the north the BART strike was attracting national attention as traffic slogged through the Bay Area like a thick fruity shake through a thin crimped straw, here in the mountains northeast of San Bernardino, MARTA employees--sometimes numbering only one picketer at a time--shouldered strike signs in relative obscurity.

The two strikes occurred simultaneously, but they were of far different proportion and effect. The BART strike involved 2,600 employees, among the highest-paid public transportation workers in the state. The MARTA strike involved 21 people, most of whom earn $8 an hour.

Up north, there was gridlock, but the MARTA strike, affecting communities around Big Bear and Lake Arrowhead, was evident in other ways. It could be seen in the slow gait of the elderly, walking on the sides of roads, and it could be seen in Anthony Davin’s slow, one-mile trek on crutches to the grocery store.

Unlike BART passengers, those who ride MARTA, for the most part, are not commuters using public transportation as an alternative to driving. They are people without alternatives.

Davin, who has cerebral palsy, is a regular in the MARTA Dial-A-Ride service. Like most passengers, he’s on a first-name basis with the drivers, who often carry his groceries down 25 steps to his front door. They pick up videos at his home to return to the store.

This isn’t the transit service of the city. Nor was it a typical labor dispute. During the strike, drivers encouraged people to call them at home if they needed rides. They drove them for free in their own vehicles.

“We know these people,” said driver Sal Red Hawk. “We know their names; we know what time they have to be at work.”

One year, just before Christmas, Kristine Harnes dropped off one of her regular riders, a young boy, and saw that his mother was upset. She stopped to see if there was anything she could do. The woman, who had three children, explained that her public assistance check hadn’t arrived.

Harnes went back to the MARTA office, told her colleagues about the woman, and they took up a collection. Harnes went to the store with about $100 and bought diapers, bologna and cheese, baby formula, whatever she thought the family might need.

“When I helped her put the food away, her refrigerator was completely empty,” Harnes said. “She didn’t even have mayonnaise.”

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At last week’s meeting, employees and riders wanted answers they weren’t getting from the MARTA board. It was a pivotal point in the strike, and, depending on what resulted from the meeting, matters would either flare new flames or cool to a simmer. It had to be one or the other.

It took Harnes an unsettling second to do the math in her head. No, she said, without a paycheck, this single mother of one would not be able to cover next month’s rent.

The decision to strike on Aug. 28 was not easy. This is an area where people pretty much try to get along with each other. It’s one of the reasons Harnes moved here from Ventura two years ago.

“You can’t go to the grocery store without seeing 12 to 15 people you know,” she said. “Plus, I’m not a confrontational person by nature. But at the same time, I had to do what I thought was right.”

Her sentiments were echoed by one of the board members at the meeting.

“I know many of you intimately,” said Gerald Conedy. “You’ve been to my home, so this has been very hard, but I believe with everything that’s in me that this board stands for what is right and is doing the best it can given the circumstances. . . . I’m sorry for the politics. I’m sorry for the protocol. I’m sorry for the things we have to do. . . . We’re doing the very best we can.”

With the exception of a passerby hurling a plastic bottle toward picketers, there were no incidents of violence or destruction during the strike. On Day 1, management sent out food and cold drinks to picketers.

And even at the Sept. 9 meeting, underlying the adversity, there was characteristic clemency. Esther Delgado, a regular passenger, brought a bag with enough saltwater taffy for everyone.

While not all MARTA employees picketed, no one crossed. The system was effectively shut down, forcing people to make other arrangements for rides--or walk.

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For the past year, workers had been meeting with Teamsters officials, discussing concerns that began under the previous general manager. Late last year, they signed union cards, but theMARTA board refused to give the union exclusive recognition without a designated period during which other unions could vie for employees’ membership and an election could be conducted by a third party to avoid coercion.

Employees grew impatient. They wanted to begin work on a contract that would do away with the “at-will” clause, a condition of employment allowing them to be terminated from their jobs at the will of MARTA management.

They were upset about some drivers getting raises and choice routes over those with seniority. And there was the matter of safety. Some of the vehicles had 300,000 miles on them. At least one caught fire and was garaged.

On July 22, employees gathered at a Big Bear restaurant. The last time they met, they didn’t order food, which ruffled a few feathers behind the cash register. So, this time, they ordered pizza.

Then they were given pieces of paper asking them if they favored a strike: yes or no. They marked their ballots, folded the paper in half, passed them to co-worker Angel Garcia, who unfolded them one by one and read the vote.

It was 16-3 to strike.

They decided it would be more effective as a surprise, so no strike date was set. One day, they would arrive at work and the pickets would go up. So, each day, they went to work awaiting word. Then UPS went on strike and MARTA employees were told they would have to wait, as the Teamsters channeled their resources to the UPS effort.

Once that strike was settled, MARTA employees met again. They ordered more pizza. This time the vote was a show of hands, and all hands present went up.

The strike began the next day.

No end was in sight until word came from the board about the emergency meeting last week. Employees were given a chance to address the board. Mainly, they wanted to know when the issue of exclusivity could be addressed and the process of negotiating a contract would begin. Hertzmann said the board’s negotiator would meet with the union as soon as possible.

“We’re not making any money right now, and we have children to feed,” Harnes stood and said. “We’d like to know when ‘as soon as possible’ is. We have bills to pay.”

Members of the audience grew frustrated and angry when they couldn’t get answers. Hertzmann explained that the board was not going to negotiate in a public forum, that it would be done by its negotiator in private.

Teamsters organizer Mike Russell was surprised at the end of the meeting when Andy Hartzell, the board’s negotiator, said quietly that yes, he would meet with them immediately out of a shared concern to settle the dispute.

For about an hour, employees anxiously awaited word outside the center. When Teamsters officials reappeared, they were smiling. Huddling the workers together near the back of the building, there were bursts of cheers.

Teamsters hats were handed out. Cokes were pulled from a cooler. The strike was called off. Workers would return to their jobs as soon as vehicles were inspected for safety, perhaps sometime this week. An election, conducted by an outside party, would be held within 30 days. Then they would begin negotiations.

The first battle, it appeared, was over. Harnes and the other employees felt victorious.

“If you stand together, you can do anything,” she said in the parking lot of the senior center. The workers celebrated. With pizza.