MTA Strike’s Full Impact to Hit Today

As the MTA strike paralyzed Los Angeles County mass transit for the second day Sunday, about 450,000 commuters--many of them minorities and low-wage earners with few options--prepared to bear today’s full impact of the labor dispute on their jobs and families.

With contract negotiations suspended, those dependent on public transportation planned to carpool, take cabs, walk or use neighborhood entrepreneurs who charge less than taxis for a cramped ride in their personal cars or trucks.

Others who cannot afford private transit said they have canceled shopping trips, errands, even doctor’s appointments for their children. Many employees, desperate to keep their jobs, said they will call in sick or simply get up a few hours earlier this week and walk to work--some for distances of 10 miles or more.

“What else can I do?” asked Rodrigo Cabrero, 40, who said he has no other option but to set out before dawn from his home in Pico Union to get to his restaurant job in Santa Monica on time.

Meanwhile, four county supervisors and two other MTA board members called on the United Transportation Union, which represents 4,400 MTA drivers, to end the strike immediately and resume contract negotiations at 10 a.m. today.

Union officials said Sunday they will return to the bargaining table in Pasadena only when a state mediator summons them back, which might be as early as today. MTA officials said, however, that the union could restart the talks any time.

The mediator could not be reached for comment.

Talks broke off Friday night, two hours before a midnight deadline, shutting down the nation’s second-largest bus system. The MTA has about 2,000 buses on 200 routes as well as 59 miles of subway and light rail lines.

“The city and county’s neediest and poorest residents are the ones who are being affected by this strike,” said Supervisor and MTA Chairwoman Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, who accused the union of “thumbing its nose at taxpayers and riders.”

At a Sunday news conference in Pasadena, Burke was joined in her condemnation of the strike by Supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky, Gloria Molina and Mike Antonovich as well as Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson and Duarte City Councilman John Fasana. All are MTA board members.

Union spokesman Goldy Norton rejected the demand for an end to the strike, saying the union was forced to walk out by MTA negotiators because they wanted major concessions from drivers, such as a 15% reduction in overtime.

“This union is strong in its resolve that we will do what we can to reach an agreement,” he said.

The strike began at 12:01 a.m. Saturday and stranded about 200,000 bus and rail riders who normally use public transportation that day. Particularly hard hit were immigrants and the poor who live and work in downtown Los Angeles, Koreatown, Chinatown and Little Tokyo.

Taxi companies and other bus lines were swamped by increased demand over the weekend. But many of those who rely on mass transit could not afford the costly alternative and were forced to stay home, walk or rely on friends or relatives for rides.

At the MTA’s light rail stations Sunday, several riders, who did not know about the strike, encountered yellow police tape and notices in English and Spanish, stating that Metro Rail is not in service because of a transit strike. The signs also warned that trespassers will be arrested.

Commuters said they could get private transportation, but only at great expense. A monthly MTA bus and rail pass costs $42, but Moises Garcia says his transportation costs have risen from pocket change to one-third of his income in just two days.

The 26-year-old regularly rides the Red Line from his home in Koreatown to the Civic Center, where he works at a Chinese restaurant on Broadway.

“I’m paying $10 each way for a taxi,” said Garcia, who works six days a week for $60 a day. “That’s only $40,” he said of his remaining wages. “I can’t keep doing that.”

Mohammed Bapi, 26, of Van Nuys was nearly two hours late for work Saturday and Sunday, but he said it couldn’t be helped. Bapi, 26, works at a gas station in North Hollywood.

On Saturday, he waited an hour for a bus that never came and then walked the five miles to work. On Sunday, Bapi did the same thing after calling for a taxi.

“I waited so long,” he said. “The cabs were all full.”

The young man said he did not know how he will get to work in the days ahead. “My feet hurt,” he said.

Orange County Transportation Authority officials reported no problems Sunday. Only two of the four Orange County bus lines that travel into Los Angeles County run on weekends.

However, today “might be a different story,” said OCTA spokesman George Urch.

That’s when some of the 6,000 commuters from Orange County who normally take Metrolink trains into Los Angeles will either opt to drive themselves, causing more congestion on the freeways, or brave the train ride into Union Station in Los Angeles.

Once at Union Station, commuters could be stranded, since few connecting buses will be operating and MTA subways will be idle.

“Not everything is within walking distance from Union Station,” Urch said.

OCTA will attempt to run its four scheduled bus lines into Los Angeles County today, Urch said. Only 1% of the OCTA’s 180,000 daily riders take a bus into Los Angeles, Urch said.

OCTA officials say the only OCTA bus line that might encounter some activity is the 701 Express route from Huntington Beach into downtown Los Angeles. That’s the only bus to go to Union Station.

“We’ve told our drivers that we don’t want to put anyone in an uncomfortable position or a situation where they have to cross picket lines,” Urch said. “We’re working to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

That means the 701 Express bus might drop off passengers before reaching its destination of Union Station, the headquarters of the MTA, where some officials anticipate picket lines.

Another option is for a manager to relieve the union driver before Union Station, steering the bus past protesters. OCTA bus drivers belong to Local 952 of the Orange County Teamsters, and Teamsters officials have told striking MTA drivers that they would honor the picket lines.

Urch said OCTA will send officials ahead of the first 701 Express bus to “bird-dog” the scene. “We don’t anticipate any problems,” Urch said, adding, “but it all depends on where the strikers will be.”

In Los Angeles, the problems are expected to be far worse today as about 450,000 people who normally use public transit every day during the workweek try to get to their jobs and other destinations.

Sgt. Rhett Price of the California Highway Patrol said the CHP is gearing up for clogged freeways throughout the day.

“We expect some delays, as much as 30-minute delays, with the extra cars on the road,” Price said. “We will have as many as 300 extra officers on the road to assist with the morning commute.”

“It’s going to be chaos,” said Albert Johnson, 45, a bus operator who was picketing Sunday at the MTA’s bus yard in West Hollywood. “We run three minutes apart, with packed buses. What are people going to do? You can put all the DASH (shuttle) buses and all the cabs out there. But it’s not going to take care of the people.”

Despite the heat, scores of drivers picketed MTA facilities during the weekend.

“Believe me, we want to be working,” said Johnson as drivers tooted their horns in support of the strikers. “But you can’t take us out of a ’73 Cadillac and put us in a ’62 Volkswagen.”

At MacArthur Park on Sunday, the strike dampened the festivities of a Central American independence parade as residents in the low-income area grew more desperate about how they would get to work.

A garment worker from Guatemala said his wife, who suffers from swollen legs, had to cancel a doctor’s appointment because she had no way to get there. Others considered using bandit taxis, the unlicensed cabs that operate in many poorer neighborhoods.

Some riders condemned the strike by bus drivers, who earn about $50,000 a year with overtime. They said poor immigrants who depend on mass transit work in restaurants and manufacturing plants for minimum wage or less.

“I am very concerned, not just for me, but for all the people,” said Elisia Avalos, 29, who works at a garment factory out of walking distance from her home. “I don’t know if we’ll have enough to eat.”

Rosalio Mendiola said he usually leaves his home near Normandie Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard at 4 a.m. to make it to his job in the room service department of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel by 5.

During the strike, Mendiola plans to leave at 3 a.m.--and walk the six miles to work. While that is an inconvenience, he said he is more concerned about his co-workers who live as far away as El Monte and Long Beach.

“I don’t know how they’re going to come to work,” he said.

Limited options are available, such as the Los Angeles DASH service and a variety of non-MTA bus lines in the county, including Montebello, Santa Monica, Torrance, Long Beach, Culver City, Foothill Transit in the San Gabriel Valley, and the Los Angeles City Department of Transportation.

Metrolink, the commuter rail service that runs trains into downtown Los Angeles from Ventura, San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange counties, is adding eight trains a day. The additional service is limited to the Ventura and Antelope Valley lines.

Pickets, however, were successful Saturday in preventing the MTA from using private contractors to operate emergency bus service on five of its 200 routes. Drivers for the private companies, who are represented by the Teamsters union, refused to cross the United Transportation Union picket lines.

But the private firms were able to put 42 shuttle buses on lightly used routes in the county.

An MTA proposal to cut overtime costs by 15% remains one of the critical issues. The authority wants 400 of its 4,400 drivers to accept new four-day workweeks in which they would be on duty at least 12 hours, but be paid for only 10 hours a day. The other two hours would be preparation or break time. No overtime would be paid until after 12 hours.

*

Times staff writers Peter Y. Hong, Grace E. Jang, Josh Meyer and Joe Mozingo contributed to this story.