Jesse Jackson Brings Hope to Both Sides in MTA Strike

Energized by the intervention of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials and union leaders vowed Friday to work through this weekend to negotiate an end to the crippling transit strike that has shut down the nation’s second-largest bus system for almost a month.

The new willingness to bargain seriously came only hours before striking bus and train operators voted unanimously to reject the MTA’s “last, best and final” contract offer, made earlier this week.

The MTA, going over the heads of union leaders, mailed a summary of the proposed three-year contract to the striking drivers and urged them to accept the package and return to work.

But leaders of the United Transportation Union short-circuited management’s effort by calling a mass meeting Friday night at the Los Angeles Convention Center to resoundingly reject the deal.

“I want you to know there is a better package out there for you,” declared James Williams, chairman of the drivers union. “You’ve got to hold on for a few more days.”

Moments later, an estimated 2,500 striking drivers shouted their thunderous approval when Williams asked them to vote on a motion to reject the MTA’s offer. No one in the boisterous, sign-waving, whistle-blowing crowd stood up when Williams asked if anyone wanted to accept the deal. As the drivers threw copies of the contract proposal into the air, Williams said, “We have a unanimous vote.”

Despite the MTA’s insistence that the offer was final, negotiations on a new contract resumed in Pasadena Friday afternoon. After a long break for the union’s combination pep rally and contract rejection ceremony, the talks started again late Friday night and were to continue through the weekend.

The MTA’s most powerful member, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan told a late afternoon news conference that “we made progress” after Jackson joined the talks at labor’s invitation. “We will work tonight and tomorrow to resolve this by the end of the weekend,” the mayor said.

Riordan said the MTA board had not agreed to take its offer off the table, but had agreed to discuss “all the issues.”

For the first time since the strike began, Williams sounded a hopeful note, saying the union, “is committed to resolve this matter over the weekend. I am encouraged by having Rev. Jackson join us here.”

County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, chairwoman of the MTA board, said Jackson’s involvement had brought “a very positive approach” to the contentious negotiations. “We appreciate him being here. We appreciate what he has contributed.”

Jackson who shuttled between MTA and union officials and joined them in face-to-face negotiations Friday said, “The real victory is to be back at the table.”

His arrival, at the behest of county Federation of Labor chief Miguel Contreras, boosted the spirits of the striking drivers, who have lost almost a month’s pay.

Jackson told the Los Angeles City Council Friday morning that he was not eager to get in the middle of the city’s most contentious transit strike in two decades, but “the workers have insisted.”

Avoiding the impassioned oratory for which he is famous, Jackson said, “To seek reconciliation in the end you must choose negotiation over confrontation. . . . I urge all the parties to get back to the table. Stay in the room until the smoke comes out.”

He observed that the strike, which has left 450,000 mostly poor and minority bus and train riders without public transit, also has taken a toll on bus drivers. Some “fear the scabs will replace them,” Jackson said. “Others fear budgets will be busted.”

Later in the day, he said: “The MTA doesn’t intend to use scabs to replace striking workers.”

Heeding a call from Jackson, local ministers, labor leaders and state lawmakers, the council unanimously passed a motion urging Riordan to “immediately take necessary steps to end the MTA strike and restore our collapsed transportation system.” The council also waived the $20,000 fee the union would have been charged to use the Convention Center.

Councilman Alex Padilla, who wrote the council motion, called the strike “arguably the most important issue in Los Angeles today. . . . Enough is enough. It has been 28 days. That’s 28 days too long.”

Referring to Riordan, Councilman Mike Hernandez said: “He needs to understand not everyone lives in Brentwood. Not everybody gets a police officer to drive them to work. Some people have a bus driver to drive them to work.”

MTA’s Chief Operating Officer Allan Lipsky was jeered by some striking drivers when he tried to offer MTA’s viewpoint on the labor dispute. “We never wanted to issue this last, best and final offer,” he said. “We are not out to bust the union. We want our operators to come back to work.”

The MTA offer that drivers rejected Friday included a 9.3% pay increase for drivers over three years. The package also would have reduced the drivers’ contribution to their pension plan, boosting the pay hike to slightly more than 10%.

However, the proposed contract included provisions vehemently opposed by union leaders, including a significant expansion in the number of lower-paid part-time drivers and expanded use of drivers on four-day, 10-hour or four-day 12-hour-a-day work weeks without overtime. Those elements would dramatically reduce the overtime drivers use to maintain their incomes.

The MTA’s offer also would have allowed part-time drivers to work a maximum of 36 hours and establish a lower wage scale for newly hired part-time drivers.

State Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Sylmar), chairman of the Senate Industrial Relations Committee, told the council that state lawmakers will hold a joint hearing Monday in Los Angeles to explore reasons for the transit strike.

“The issue,” said Alarcon, who was on the MTA board during a period of heavy spending, “is our historic over-investment in the rail system. . . . We need to investigate how the monies are being used at the MTA.”

Alarcon added that he is considering legislation to reduce the power of the mayor, the board of supervisors and smaller cities by changing the makeup of the MTA board. The proposal includes creating six elected district representatives.