Unions Fear MTA Seeks to Break Up Bus System

As the Metropolitan Transportation Authority strike lurched toward the end of its second week Wednesday, the issues separating unions and management appeared to extend far beyond existing labor contracts.

Among the questions lingering in the aftermath of the abrupt end to negotiations Tuesday--and an exchange of charges Wednesday--was whether many of the current MTA board members, particularly Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, see the talks as a way of undermining transit unions and dismantling the giant transportation agency as it now exists.

Many believe that the current MTA board envisions a much slimmed-down agency, focusing mostly on rail, with bus operations parceled out to other, smaller transit agencies.

The board’s demonstrated preference for rail over buses led to a major lawsuit by bus rider advocates alleging that the MTA was discriminating against its mostly poor and minority bus riders. To avoid a trial, the MTA board agreed to sign a federal court consent decree requiring reductions in overcrowding and improvements in bus service.

When it became apparent that the decree would require the agency to buy hundreds of additional buses beyond what it anticipated, the MTA appealed a federal judge’s order. A decision of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is pending. The settlement of the lawsuit also established limits on how much the MTA can raise fares.

The big stumbling block to breaking up the sprawling bus system is the powerful unions, which not only have won good contracts for their members, but also have protection in the contracts that would make it prohibitively expensive for private bus operators to take on current MTA drivers and mechanics.

The implications of the MTA’s bargaining stance in what is now the longest transit strike in Los Angeles in 20 years are not lost on labor.

“They are trying to achieve things that go far beyond money,” said Goldy Norton of the United Transportation Union, which represents the 4,400 bus and rail operators who are leading the strike.

The distance separating the two sides is so great and the passions so intense that prospects for a quick end to the strike seem remote, and the dispute could portend a new era of deeply adversarial labor relations at the transit agency.

Fueling such anxieties were comments Wednesday by Riordan during his monthly show on KFWB-AM (980).

Rather than trying to quietly mend fences with the union and get buses back on the road for the MTA’s 450,000 weekday passengers, Riordan took his case to the airwaves, saying he supports breaking up the nation’s second-largest bus system into smaller geographic operations, known as transit zones. He conceded that such a move would weaken the unions.

The mayor told his radio audience that transit agencies of the MTA’s size are inefficient and give unions too much clout.

“The unions do not want to have separate transit zones,” said the mayor, who controls four of 13 seats on the MTA board. Unions, he said, like big public agencies, “which they can control much better [because] they only have to negotiate one contract and go on one strike.”

The unions were quick to fire back, both at Riordan and the five Los Angeles County supervisors, who sit with him on the MTA board.

“We have seen during the transit strike what a tower of arrogant power the MTA has become,” said Miguel Contreras, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. “Members of the county Board of Supervisors sit in that tower, and it’s time for the walls to come tumbling down.”

Shortly after Riordan finished his radio show, he joined Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and seven other MTA board members in a news conference at the Hall of Administration.

Burke conceded that the MTA board wants the unions to surrender work rules, overtime schedules and other benefits that previous boards agreed to in contracts, including those signed just three years ago.

She attributed the agency’s current hard line to its unwillingness to live with earlier contracts.

“The reality is [the] MTA may have made mistakes in the past,” she said. “There were concessions that were made over the years in order to prevent a strike. But the fact remains today that we are trying to correct not all of these things,” but some of them.

She and other board members insisted that the strike is about “antiquated” work rules, high costs, a huge operating deficit and the need to provide more service to riders--the transit-dependent poor.

Union members countered that concessions on such issues as overtime would destroy the middle-class lives of many MTA workers, who have built overtime pay into their monthly housing budgets. They say surrendering gains from earlier contracts is a poison pill they will never swallow.

Norton, the drivers union spokesman, alleged that Riordan wants to cement a breakup of the MTA before he leaves office next year.

“This is all about the mayor getting his transit zones,” he said. “He knows he has got to destroy our ability to avoid transit zones, because he isn’t going to be around any longer than next April.”

Overshadowing the talks from the beginning has been legislation now awaiting action by the governor that would protect the unions if a new breakaway transit district were created in the San Fernando Valley or if the San Gabriel Valley zone operation, currently run by Foothill Transit, were to be expanded. Political and business interests in both areas are pushing MTA board members to give up more of the agency’s territory to transit zones.

Backers of a San Fernando Valley zone include Riordan, county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and members of the influential Valley Industry and Commerce Assn. Yaroslavsky, an MTA board member, also serves as chairman of the interim San Fernando Valley zone agency.

The interests are so closely linked that the law firm--Riordan & McKinzie--that played a key role in the creation of Foothill Transit was headed by Riordan long before he ran for mayor of Los Angeles. And Foothill’s present attorney is involved in efforts to create another distinct transit zone--this time in the San Fernando Valley.

If created, the new agency would take over MTA routes in the Valley. The MTA’s bus drivers and mechanics who serve the Valley would be transferred to the new agency.

With that in mind, MTA unions won legislative passage of a bill by Sen. Kevin Murray (D-Culver City) that would require any new transit zone created in the Valley or elsewhere in the county to abide by the MTA’s union contracts for at least four years. Since the contracts are three years long, the bill could conceivably provide protection for the zone employees for up to six years.

Gov. Gray Davis has until midnight Saturday to decide the fate of the legislation. Last year, he vetoed a similar bill but served notice that he believed the issue should be decided locally--by the MTA board.

In his veto message last fall, the governor said he would prefer that the MTA recognize “existing collective bargaining agreements and not use the establishment of transportation zones as subterfuge for denying worker rights for which they have already bargained.”

MTA board members are urging Davis to veto the latest bill. Yaroslavsky said the measure basically “would put zones out of business” by requiring them to pick up the MTA’s union contracts.

Unions feel just as strongly that should a transit zone be created without protections, their members would not survive in the new setup.

Neil Silver, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents 1,860 mechanics who are honoring picket lines in the strike, said the Murray bill weighs so heavily on the minds of MTA negotiators that they refused to talk Wednesday about any issue other than transit zones.

Silver said MTA negotiators even tried to pressure him to ask Davis to veto the Murray bill, even though Silver’s union was one of its sponsors.

When Silver said no, “negotiations abruptly ended,” he said of Wednesday’s session between his union and the MTA, one of the periodic meetings that have been held pending the outcome of the drivers’ strike.

The “MTA is doing the bidding or negotiating for the small group of businessmen in the Valley,” Silver said. “They are holding the public hostage, not us.”

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Times staff writer Richard Winton contributed to this story.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

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 98 buses along 14 lines Wednesday under contract with private bus companies. The lines in operation were: 96, 125, 128, 130, 167, 177, 205, 225, 226, 232, 254, 256, 266 and 270 through contracts with private bus companies. Lines 218, 603 and 605 have been operating only on weekends. The MTA said its ability to maintain a limited schedule will 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.

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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.

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.

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METROLINK: Metrolink, the commuter rail service that runs trains to downtown Los Angeles from Ventura, San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange counties, will honor MTA monthly, semimonthly and weekly passes, as well as passes for seniors, disabled riders and students.

Red Line Special buses provided by the MTA and 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). Shuttles will continue from Westlake/MacArthur Park to Wilshire/Vermont, Vermont/Beverly, Vermont/Santa Monica, Vermont/Sunset, Vermont/Hollywood.

Signs and Metrolink personnel will direct passengers to the bus plaza area at Union Station to board the buses.

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

LIVES DISRUPTED

For nannies who care for the children of L.A.’s affluent, the strike can be a disaster. B1

* SHAWN HUBLER

Gritty urban bus systems and their suburban counterparts are apples and oranges. B1

* TWO-WHEELED ALTERNATIVE

The walkout has prompted some L.A. commuters to turn to bicycles. B6