MTA Talks Resume; Strike Affecting Businesses

As residents and businesses in working-class neighborhoods continued to suffer, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s drivers union and management met face to face for the first time in three days Tuesday, but the best they could do was agree to meet again today.

Despite the failure to address meaningful contract issues, the top negotiators for the two sides left the Pasadena Hilton after a 90-minute meeting smiling and shaking hands.

Julian Burke, the MTA’s chief executive officer, and James Williams, head of the United Transportation Union, described Tuesday’s session as a step in the right direction.

“We are very pleased to be back at the bargaining table,” said Williams, whose 4,400-member union walked out of talks and called a strike that began at midnight Friday.

While MTA management and the unions weighed their respective positions, the MTA’s 450,000 daily riders--most with no alternative to public transit--struggled to come up with some way of getting around.

With the drivers on strike and members of MTA unions representing mechanics, clerks and supervisors refusing to cross picket lines, the walkout has idled all but a few of the MTA’s 2,000 buses, along with the Red Line subway, and Blue Line and Green Line light-rail systems.

Business and residents of the Eastside, Central and South-Central Los Angeles are bearing the brunt of the strike, with shoppers who use mass transit unable to get to stores and workers putting together patchwork commuting schemes. Schools, hit by high absenteeism Monday, reported that attendance was better Tuesday.

Pacific Boulevard in Huntington Park, a commercial stretch considered Los Angeles County’s busiest Latino shopping district, is one of the areas being hurt by the strike.

Up and down the half-mile strip of restaurants, clothing stores, music outlets and other shops, merchants said business has been down by 50% since the walkout began.

“Today is even worse than yesterday,” said Louis Delgado, manager of a novelty and costume shop. By midafternoon Tuesday, he

said, he had sold $100 worth of merchandise--a fraction of his usual sales.

“I’m looking out at the street and I only see about 30 people walking around,” he said. “I guess people are just going to work and then going home. No one wants to find transportation to go shopping.”

At the normally chaotic Gallo Giro eatery on the corner of Pacific Boulevard and Florence Avenue, the lines to order plates of tamales, tortas, burritos and carne asada were either nonexistent or composed of only two or three people.

The outdoor tables that are usually filled with customers were all but empty. Only three tables were in use during Tuesday’s lunch hour.

Louis Rivera, the assistant manager, said business has dropped at least 50%, most noticeably in the morning, when many customers stop for coffee or a pastry on the way to catch a bus.

“All the people around here stop for a taco or coffee on the way to the bus,” he said. “Without the buses, we don’t have that.”

He worried about the impact the strike could have on his workers, many of whom have been taking taxis to work because of the walkout. Rivera said his workers can’t afford to pay for taxis all week.

Over at the Whittier Boulevard shopping district in East Los Angeles, some business owners said their earnings have dropped by about a third since the buses stopped running Saturday.

Chin Chin, who has owned a thrift store on the block for 10 years, said most of her customers are arriving on foot.

“It has been slower,” she said while ringing up some hardware items for a customer. “But not too slow.”

Still, Chin said, “it would be good for them to finish [negotiations] quickly. One of my workers was an hour late the other day because she couldn’t catch a bus.”

Up a few blocks, Angelus Hernandez stood inside an empty dress store located behind a now-quiet MTA bus stop. Hernandez said commuters usually head straight toward his window displays as soon as they get off the buses.

“We’re not operating too well,” he said. “People have no way to get here. Hopefully, this won’t last too long.”

Crowds did gather at terminals where the buses and trains that are still operating were picking up passengers. The Metrolink commuter trains and eight municipal bus companies are still serving Los Angeles.

Demand for service from Union Station to the Westside was so great that Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus line added six to 10 buses to its downtown Los Angeles express service during peak morning and evening commuting hours.

“They are coming back with standing room only loads,” said Cynthia Gibson, a spokeswoman for the Santa Monica bus company. She said buses with seats for 38 passengers were carrying nearly twice that many riders. Eighty or so people were crowding into the larger 51-passenger buses.

She said Union Station was packed with passengers vying for space on the Big Blue Buses. “We can’t get enough buses in there,” she said.

Another busy Big Blue Bus terminal was located at Rimpau and Pico boulevards. Passengers there said they normally take the MTA line to jobs on the Westside, but were forced by the strike to get rides to the terminal.

Substitute teacher Robert Kahlil, 37, said every day during the strike has become an odyssey for him. He said Tuesday that he was lucky enough to catch the Big Blue Bus from his home in West Los Angeles to Queen Anne Place Elementary School in the Mid-City area.

Today Kahlil is assigned to a school in Hollywood.

“It’s going to be interesting,” he said. “I have my cellular phone. I’m going to take a bus to La Brea and then call a taxi. It’s cheaper than renting a car.”

Watching for Long-Term Impact

The exhausting commutes are being closely watched by Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. He said the longer the strike lasts, the deeper the impact on the local economy.

“Most people think this is an inner-city thing, but I think there is going to be a back flow to the Westside that will affect restaurants and the service industry if it continues,” he said. “The first week, people are trying hard to get to work. But if there is a second week, people may consider how long it takes to get to work and may just start to drop out. It will be just so draining to keep it up.”

Elsewhere, the California Highway Patrol and Caltrans said traffic was heavy Tuesday, but not unusually so.

The strike appeared to have only a modest impact on schools.

Administrators at Washington High School in South Los Angeles, for example, reported near-normal attendance Tuesday but said tardies were up because students had to walk or find other means of transportation.

Local community college administrators said students were trickling back to school Tuesday after a significant drop in attendance at some campuses the day before.

“People seem to be adjusting and finding ways to get to school,” said Lynn Winter Gross, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Community College District.

The resumption of face-to-face meetings Tuesday was applauded by both sides, although neither the MTA nor the drivers union indicated how far they were from settling their deep differences.

When the two sides sit down again to resume negotiations, they will have a full plate of unsettled issues in front of them.

The MTA is still waiting for the union to respond to a comprehensive contract offer it made last week that covered pay raises, pension benefits, scheduling and work rules.

Facing huge operating deficits in coming years, the MTA has been demanding a 15% reduction in overtime pay for drivers and wants extensive changes in work rules that are favorable to unions.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to urge the unions to resume negotiations and called on Gov. Gray Davis to personally intervene in the talks to help settle the labor dispute.

Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, who wrote the motion calling for a resumption of negotiations, said many city employees have complained that the strike has interfered with their ability to get to their jobs.

Steve Smith, director of the state Department of Industrial Relations, would not respond directly to the City Council’s request that the governor get personally involved.

Smith did say he believes “there is some very slow progress” being made.

“The administration is committed to doing everything we can do because it is certainly not a good thing for the taxpayers or the people who rely on mass transit,” Smith said.

Miguel Contreras of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor announced that organized labor will hold a mass rally in front of the MTA’s Gateway Center headquarters Thursday to underscore its support for the striking drivers.

“This strike of the MTA workers is a strike that belongs to all of labor,” he said.

*

Times staff writers Hugo Martin, Antonio Olivo, Patrick McGreevy, Duke Helfand, and correspondent Gina Piccalo contributed to this story.

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Transportation Options

The public should not count on the MTA to operate any of its own bus or rail service today, according to MTA officials. None of the Red Line subway trains will be operating from the San Fernando Valley and Mid-City to Union Station. No service is planned on the Blue Line between Long Beach and Los Angeles or the Green Line between Norwalk and El Segundo. Here are some options:

MTA BUSES: The MTA operated 25 buses along eight lines Tuesday under contracts with private bus companies. The lines in operation were: Line 96, from downtown Los Angeles to Sherman Oaks; Line 125, from El Segundo to La Mirada; Line 128, from Compton to La Mirada; Line 130, from Redondo Beach to Fullerton; Line 167, from Plummer Street to Coldwater Canyon Avenue; Line 226, from Los Angeles International Airport to Palos Verdes Peninsula; Line 232, from Long Beach to Los Angeles International Airport; Line 266, from Altadena to Lakewood. The MTA said its ability to maintain a limited schedule would depend on strike developments.

In addition to the regular customer service number, (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 Web site to provide information on different bus lines. The Web site is https://www.socaltip.org.

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.

The Los Angeles County Municipal Operators Coalition’s 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. With pickets surrounding the entrance to the El Monte bus station, riders can catch a Foothill Transit bus to downtown Los Angeles two blocks east of Santa Anita on the north side of Ramona Boulevard. Call (800) RIDE INFO, or visit Foothill’s Web site at https://www.foothilltransit.org

Torrance Transit will add additional service to and from downtown Los Angeles; Gardena Municipal Bus Line will operate additional services on its Lines 1 and 2 and will accept MTA tokens; Montebello Bus Line will provide additional service to East Los Angeles on Line 10 and will add trips on Lines 40 and 50 to downtown Los Angeles.

METROLINK: Metrolink, the com-muter rail service that runs trains to 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 run to the Westlake/MacArthur Park Metro Station. The other set will travel 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 extra time to complete their commute. Bicycles are normally allowed on trains, but because of space restrictions, bicycles will not be allowed on buses.

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