2 Unions Split With Striking MTA Drivers

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s supervisors and mechanics broke with striking bus drivers Monday and announced that they will return to work today.

It was not immediately clear whether the two groups’ return to work will allow the transit agency to resume at least reduced bus and Metro Rail service.

During the last public transit walkout, in 1994, supervisors crossed picket lines and managed to keep some buses and Metro Rail trains operating.

The supervisors were not unionized then, but now belong to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Oran McMichael, an official of the union, insisted Monday that this time, supervisors would not be driving buses or trains.

“No one will be going out on the road or the track,” McMichael said.

Marc Littman, a spokesman for the MTA, said the transit agency would not attempt to operate buses or trains using supervisors.

“We’re not going to cross picket lines and put our employees and buses at risk,” Littman said.

But the action by the mechanics and supervisors puts more pressure on the MTA’s 4,400 bus and rail operators to settle the strike rapidly.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, a member of the MTA governing board, called the action by the breakaway unions “a very healthy development.”

He and others said they hope drivers will also return to work.

“If all of them will go back to work, including the bus drivers, I think there is a lot of room to maneuver here. I think there is a deal to be made,” Yaroslavsky said.

Mechanics led the break with the drivers in part to honor commitments made to Gov. Gray Davis, who signed a union-backed bill Saturday that protects the MTA’s existing labor contracts in the event the transit agency spins off additional smaller bus systems called transit zones or expands the one that already exists in the San Gabriel Valley.

Neil Silver, chief of the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents 1,860 mechanics, announced during a news conference at the Pasadena Hilton that he was recommending that his members cross United Transportation Union picket lines.

Silver said the union would reevaluate its position in seven days. He called the return to work a “seven-day cooling-off period.” After that, Silver said, the mechanics’ union reserved the right to take further action if new contracts are not in place.

Drivers Union Plans Mass Meeting

After the announcement by Silver, drivers’ union leaders said they would continue to work toward a settlement of the strike.

While contract talks continue, James Williams, head of the drivers’ union, said he would try to assemble members for a mass meeting today to discuss the strike developments and decide on a course of action. Williams called the mechanics’ decision “a mistake.”

Miguel Contreras, the head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, said the drivers strike was still a sanctioned strike, meaning that union members who cross picket lines could face penalties. However, other union officials disputed that.

During the news conference, Silver thanked the governor for signing the bill, by Sen. Kevin Murray (D-Culver City), which requires operators of new transit zones to honor existing union contracts for at least four years after the transfers of service are made.

“This removed a major issue in our dispute with MTA,” Silver said.

“We thank the governor for doing everything he could to resolve this strike,” Silver said. “If there is a picket line, it will be crossed.”

The governor’s representative in the talks, Stephen Smith, director of the Department of Industrial Relations, helped organize the news conference announcing the break in what until Monday had been a united front among the unions. Just last Friday, there was a spirited rally in front of City Hall proclaiming union solidarity.

The governor, Smith said, wants “to extend his appreciation both to ATU and AFSCME for being willing to go back to work.”

In signing the bill, Davis cited what he said was millions of dollars in economic damage to businesses in the Los Angeles area and the hardships imposed by the strike on students, the elderly and others among the 450,000 weekday riders of MTA buses and trains.

As the strike ground into its third crippling week, officials said the walkout had put thousands of additional cars on Los Angeles’ streets and freeways, cost businesses about $40 million, kept thousands of people from getting to medical appointments and prevents thousands more from getting to work and school on schedule.

But like nearly everything about the MTA, the walkout’s effect followed the fissures of class and income that fracture the social geography of Los Angeles.

Although Jack Kyser, chief economist with the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp., estimated that the strike is costing the region $2.3 million a day in sales, wages and productivity, it has scarcely touched the lives of most middle-class and wealthy Angelenos. Although businesses in working-class, mainly minority areas are suffering, the walkout has had a minor impact, at most, on schools and businesses in relatively affluent areas. And it has yet to do serious damage to the prosperous regional economy as a whole.

Freeway traffic is up about 5%, Caltrans officials estimate, and traffic on city streets is up about 8%, according to a survey by the city Department of Transportation. But the impact varies geographically. During the city department’s spot check, traffic was 15% above normal on westbound Ventura Boulevard at Reseda Boulevard, but was down 15% on 4th Street at Boyle Heights, said John Fisher, an assistant general manager at the Department of Transportation.

Hospitals and medical clinics have also been affected disproportionately, according to how dependent their patients are on public transit. Although private hospitals and clinics have suffered relatively little, Clinica Monsenor Oscar A. Romero on South Alvarado Street has seen patient visits drop by nearly 60%. At Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, cancellations are 20% above average, said Sharon Wanglin, a spokeswoman for the county health department.

Response to Bill on Transit Zones

There was mixed optimism when Davis signed the bill over the weekend that will protect union contracts in the event of creation of more transit zones similar to the one operated by Foothill Transit in the San Gabriel Valley.

New transit zones have been proposed for the San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys, and there are movements to create zones in southeast Los Angeles County.

The interest in the bill had increased pressure on the MTA negotiators and was said to have delayed progress toward new contracts because neither the unions nor management knew what the governor would do.

Davis, who vetoed a similar bill last year, said that in signing the Murray bill he was “removing one of the major outstanding obstacles to an agreement.”

Drivers, who already had iron-clad protection against the creation of low-wage transit zones in their last contract and wanted to keep it, were in a different position than other MTA unions.

The Murray bill was lobbied heavily by the mechanics’ union, while the drivers’ union stayed in the background, content with provisions in its last contract.

In signing the bill, Davis rejected arguments by the bill’s opponents that it would damage the movement to create new transit zones by making it prohibitively expensive.

A major factor in the MTA management’s position in the strike is that it costs the transit agency $98.66 an hour to operate its buses, compared to $67 spent by the Long Beach municipal transit system, $77 by Orange County and $65 by Santa Monica.

MTA management has been seeking elimination of expensive work rules and a dramatic reduction in overtime that has been built into the MTA’s pay system. In all, the MTA wants $23 million in concessions from the unions, in part to offset a $438-million operating deficit it foresees over the next 10 years.

County Supervisor Don Knabe, also a member of the MTA board, said the governor’s signature on the Murray bill probably made a quick resolution of the strike even more difficult.

“We are going to need even more relief from work rules, because it is going to be more difficult to create a zone,” he said.

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For updates on the MTA strike, go to: https://www.latimes.com/mtastrike

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Transportation Options, Los Angeles Times

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MTA STRIKE’S IMPACT

After more than two weeks, the eventual impact of the MTA strike remains unclear. B1