No MTA Talks Set; Strike Expected to Disrupt Workweek

Striking MTA drivers put the brakes on mass transit Saturday, stranding an estimated 200,000 bus and rail riders in and around Los Angeles and creating eerie pockets of calm in ethnic business districts that usually are jammed with weekend shoppers.

With no new talks scheduled, it appeared increasingly likely that the strike, which began at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, would continue into the regular workweek, when the MTA serves 450,000 riders a day. Negotiations between the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the drivers union broke down Friday night.

“I am hoping we can get it off dead center,” said Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, chairwoman of the MTA’s governing body. “We would like to see them come back to the table.”

There was, however, no indication that either side was ready to budge.

The MTA is demanding a 15% cut in overtime costs, which it initially said could be achieved if 400 drivers accepted a new work schedule. Those drivers would be on duty at least 12 hours, but be paid for 10 with no overtime, until their total shift exceeded 12 hours. The drivers say they cannot afford to lose overtime on the salaries they are now paid.

In a city known for its reliance on the private car, the first day of the strike passed unnoticed by most people. But for the hundreds of thousands who depend on mass transit--most of them poor, most of them immigrants--the shutdown of buses, subways and light rail lines was a real hardship.

Taxi companies were swamped by increased demand, but many of those who take public transportation couldn’t afford taxis and were forced to stay home, rely on rides from friends and relatives, or walk.

One of those in the last category, construction worker Pedro Casillas, waited in vain Saturday for a bus to take him from his job in Sylmar to his home in Pacoima, about five miles away. Finally realizing that it wasn’t going to come, he started walking.

Paula Vazquez, a downtown bookshop employee, said she took a taxi from her home near Pico Boulevard and Hoover Street to Broadway to get to work--only to confront an empty store. The taxi cost $8, and she said she can’t afford to keep taking one if the strike continues.

“From now on, I’m going to walk,” she said.

Business was down sharply throughout the Latino shopping district along Broadway, which ordinarily resembles a busy street in Mexico City every weekend. Sidewalks, usually so packed it can be difficult to walk, were strangely open and empty.

Most merchants blamed the strike. Many of the businesses had no customers at all; their employees lounged in back or talked on the phone. For once, one could walk straight up to the counter and order at McDonald’s; the usual long lines were nowhere to be seen.

“Nothing today, nothing,” griped one worker in a clothing store who gave only his first name, Mario. “No buses. No people.”

At the Grand Central Market, clusters of people still filled the aisles and seats, but it was nothing like the usual Saturday crush.

“I would say the crowd is 80% less than usual,” said Salvado Lopez, the owner of Avalon Seafood.

The effects of the strike were also strongly felt in Koreatown, Chinatown and Little Tokyo, all within a three-mile radius of downtown. Saturdays are busy shopping days, but supermarkets and many other businesses were only half full.

At Olympic Boulevard and Berendo Street in the heart of Koreatown, Shine Kim, 80, and his wife, Joo-Ram, 77, of Tujunga, wondered how they were going to get home.

Friends had dropped them off at an early morning prayer meeting at their church. After the meeting, they planned to take a bus to a supermarket, take care of some chores and then take an MTA bus home, a 90-minute trip. Nobody had told them about the strike.

“We were standing at the corner of Wilshire and Vermont for the longest time, but we didn’t see any bus,” Joo-Ram Kim said.

Finally, the couple managed to get a ride from a Korean motorist to the Hannam supermarket, a hub of Koreatown. There, the Kims were joined by numerous other elderly shoppers, and ended up taking a taxi home.

“This is the first time, we’ve been stranded like this,” said Shine Kim, who worked as a tailor before he immigrated to the United States 14 years ago. “I think it’s a little irresponsible for managers of the bus system not to make contingency plans for bus riders.”

More than 100 drivers staffed picket lines at the MTA’s Division 1 headquarters at 6th and Central streets. Usually a bus yard, where drivers stop and rest during the day, the gates were closed.

Drivers circled in front of the entrance to the yard, holding signs saying, “On Strike.” They snacked on chips and soda. In the morning, there were doughnuts. For lunch, they wheeled a barbecue out to the sidewalk and cooked chicken.

There was a constant din of people passing by on busy Central Avenue, honking horns and waving to show support.

Although some transit riders expressed anger at the drivers, many others seemed sympathetic.

“They don’t have any choice but to strike,” said Barbara Lott-Holland, a member of the Bus Riders Union, an advocacy group for bus passengers in the city. She called the MTA’s contract proposal unfair, and said her group would join the drivers on the picket line.

Lott-Holland said the MTA should allocate more money to its bus division by halting new rail construction. “They keep hollering about money and costs, but they have the funds,” she said. “Every time they want to build more rail, they find the money.”

The striking drivers were acting as if it would be a long strike, with some already looking ahead to Monday, when the full impact of the walkout would be felt.

“This Saturday and this Sunday is nothing,” said Gerald Wall, a 48-year-old driver. “Come Monday morning, when it is time for people to go to work or school, it is going to have an impact on a lot of people.”

Strike leaders said there is strong support among drivers for the walkout.

“We had 140 people show up this morning to walk the picket line,” said Homer Rogers, 54, who has been driving 30 years. “That is a very good sign.”

Wall, Rogers and other drivers bristled over the tactic by MTA negotiators of portraying average incomes for drivers at $50,000 a year. The highest-paid drivers make $20.72 an hour, or $43,000 a year. To earn $50,000, drivers must work overtime on weekends or holidays.

And because the MTA has chipped away at drivers’ salaries, many earn only $10 or $11 an hour. The drivers said they thought they had to strike to maintain their way of living.

Among those on the Central Avenue picket line was Jose Ornelas, 48. Like many drivers, he lives in a distant suburb--in his case, Fontana--because it offers relatively affordable housing. Even so, he needs to work long overtime hours to make ends meet.

Ornelas said his commute by car is an hour without traffic and can be up to two hours if traffic is bad.

“To make $50,000, we have to work 10 1/2 hours a day, plus split time. With commuting time, that can be 16 hours a day,” he said.

He said he has five children. “They hardly see me,” he said. “Even my dog doesn’t know me. He barks when he sees me.”

Ornelas said he works a split shift that begins at the downtown Los Angeles Division 1 yard at 5:30 a.m., and often continues until 7:30 p.m.

His split shift means that, for three hours during the middle of the day, when demand for transit is low, he is on duty but has no driving duties. He doesn’t get paid for that time. But if he spends 10 hours behind the wheel, he gets paid two hours of overtime. Under the contract initially proposed by the MTA, he would lose that overtime.

The MTA has said it is willing to negotiate its demand for a four-day workweek and a 10-hour day of driving without overtime. But it is adamant that it wants union concessions of some sort that would allow it to cut overtime costs by 15%.

Ornelas, for one, said he was prepared for a long strike.

“I don’t care how much I have to suffer, because I have to have a fair contract,” he said.

A few MTA buses remained in service despite the strike. About 40 buses serving five lines were on the streets Saturday, staffed by employees of private contractors who usually provide service on those lines. They were running routes between central Los Angeles and points in Pasadena and the San Fernando Valley.

The strike was a boon for one segment of the local economy: taxi companies.

Asfaw Teferi, a manager at United Independent Taxi Co., said his business was flooded with phone calls from people who rely on public transportation.

“The volume of calls is two to three times what we usually get on a normal Saturday morning,” he said. “People are calling like crazy. Even other cab companies who can’t handle the load are referring other customers. We are getting hit left and right.”

Teferi said 25 to 30 drivers were added Saturday morning to the 200-member force on Los Angeles streets. He added that many people who were calling the taxi company were asking for fare quotes.

“You can tell these are people who don’t usually take taxis,” he said. “They want to know about the rates because it may not be affordable to them today.”

Most cab firms were prepared for the transit strike, informing their drivers to expect to work longer hours. But even with the warning, taxi companies were finding it difficult to meet customer demand.

“It feels like we are the only cab company in Los Angeles right now,” Teferi said.

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Times staff writers K. Connie Kang, Annette Kondo, Mitchell Landsberg, Joe Mathews and Greg Risling contributed to this story.

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Transportation Options

During the MTA strike, there is limited MTA bus service and no subway trains are operating on the Red Line from the San Fernando Valley and Mid-City to Union Station. No service is planned on the Blue Line from Long Beach to Los Angeles or the Green Line from Norwalk to El Segundo. Here are some transportation options:

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MTA BUSES: The MTA operated 40 buses along five lines Saturday through contracts with private bus companies. The lines in operation were: Line 218, from West Hollywood to Studio City via Laurel Canyon Boulevard; Line 603, from Rampart to Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena; Line 605, from Grande Vista Street to the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center; Line 96, from Los Angeles to Sherman Oaks; Line 167, from Plummer Street to Coldwater Canyon. The MTA said its ability to maintain a limited schedule would depend on strike developments.

In addition to the regular customer service number, 1 (800) COMMUTE, the MTA has added another, (213) 626-4455. Customers can also check the Web site at https://www.mta.net.

A consumer group set up an all- purpose information website to provide information on different bus lines. The Web site is https://www.socaltip.org.

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NON-MTA BUS LINES: Foothill, Long Beach, Torrance and Norwalk Transit, Metrolink, Santa Monica Big Blue Bus and the City of Los Angeles (DASH, Community Connections, Commuter Express and Smart Shuttles) will honor MTA bus passes.

Los Angeles County Municipal Operator’s Coalition’s (LACMOC) 16 bus agencies will provide additional service: Foothill Transit will add five morning trips to its service to downtown Los Angeles originating from the Pomona Fairplex and four evening trips originating from 9th and Figueroa streets in downtown; Torrance Transit will add additional service to and from downtown Los Angeles; Gardena Municipal Bus Line (GMBL) will operate additional services on its line 1 and 2 and will accept MTA tokens; Montebello Bus Line will provide additional service to East Los Angeles on Line 10 and will also add trips on Lines 40 and 50 to downtown Los Angeles.

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METROLINK: Metrolink, the commuter rail service that runs trains into downtown Los Angeles from Ventura, San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange counties, will add eight trains to serve more passengers.

Metrolink trains will honor MTA monthly, semimonthly and weekly passes, as well as passes for seniors, disabled riders and students.

“Red Line Special” buses provided by Metrolink will operate weekdays from the Metro Bus Plaza at Union Station. The bus stops will be at each Metro Red Line Station from Union Station to Westlake/MacArthur Park, with two additional stops at 4th and Hill streets and at 9th and Hill streets, marked with special signs (see map). Signs and Metrolink personnel will direct passengers to the bus plaza area at Union Station to board the buses. One set of buses will operate to the Westlake/MacArthur Park Metro station. The other set will operate to the 7th Street/Metro Center station. A limited number of buses serving customers on a first-come, first-served basis will operate all day, from the arrival of the first train each morning until the departure of the last Metrolink train in the evening. Waiting time is unpredictable and passengers are encouraged to give themselves enough extra time to complete their commute. Although bicycles are normally allowed on trains, because of space restrictions, bicycles will not be allowed on the buses.

Metrolink commuters can call 1 (800) COMMUTE for information on ridesharing options. Commuters can obtain updates by calling 1 (800) 371-LINK, or visit Metrolink’s Web site at https://www.metrolinktrains.com.

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OTHER TRANSPORT: Call your local municipal bus lines for more information.

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SHAWN HUBLER

The MTA has plenty of money to spend on itself, but offers crumbs to its workers. B1