Bus Strike Hurts L.A. Homeless

Each day of the MTA strike homeless people are hurt. Each day, dozens of homeless people enter our PATH Job Centers for the first time. Since the strike, dozens are unable to attend job training. Each day, homeless people at PATH try to look for jobs. They can’t, without a bus to take them. Each day, sick homeless people can’t take a bus to the local clinic. Each day the MTA buses are down, homeless people are down too. Please end the MTA strike.

JOEL JOHN ROBERTS, Exec. Dir.

People Assisting The Homeless

Los Angeles

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* Re “Why Aren’t Buses Missed? Simple: Everybody Drives,” Oct. 8: My family and I are among the lucky ones who have cars and are not dependent upon mass transportation. So many people depend upon it. I felt your article trivialized their plight. Getting to and from school has become a daily problem for two of my young friends who go to school in a different community and live too far to walk. The only alternative for one of them is to move in with my family during the week so she can go to school. The other stays at my home until her Mom can drive from downtown Los Angeles to pick her up, every day.

ANGELA JONES

Harbor City

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* With the bus strike in full swing, hurting the transportation workers, the MTA directors and especially the riders (mostly poor working people), and a new countywide strike threatened, won’t anyone speak up for arbitration? Neither side seems to want it, and the supervisors won’t even talk about arbitration. Compulsory arbitration is the most sensible way to settle this type of dispute. It has been used successfully many times.

Arbitration almost always leads to a compromise acceptable to both sides without the pain inflicted by a long strike. Civilized people don’t have fistfights or duels over money disputes. Neither should workers and management.

TEAGUE LEIBOFF

Redondo Beach