Union, MTA Stiffen Resolve on Strike

Tensions escalated Friday in the transit strike that has shut down most Los Angeles County bus and train service since mid-October, leaving about 400,000 daily riders scrambling for alternatives.

Like players in a high-stakes game of poker, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and its mechanics union traded moves seeking to gain the upper hand in stalled negotiations focused largely over heath benefits.

The two sides now seem more divided than ever, meaning it could take weeks before a deal is reached to get the nation’s third-largest transit agency running again.

Early in the day, the mechanics union offered to send members back to work on one condition: that the MTA let a panel of arbitrators decide key issues in the conflict and come up with a new labor contract.

“We will call this thing off and get those buses running again and we can arbitrate what the issues are,” said Neil Silver, president of the union, which represents about 2,800 active and retired mechanics.

Union leaders believe MTA officials are worried that an outside arbitrator would rule against the agency. Silver said that if the union is willing to agree to whatever an arbitrator should decide, the transit agency should too.

“The MTA must be afraid of something if they don’t want to do it,” Silver said. “I think they know they have a lousy case.”

MTA negotiators swiftly dismissed the proposal, arguing that it would be irresponsible to cede control of the contract talks to an outside party when tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer money is at issue.

“We won’t accept this,” said MTA board member John Fasana. “I think they just want this because as far apart as the two sides are, arbitration would be good for them.... We’ve put a good offer in their hands this week and we want them to vote on it.”

The developments Friday were set off by an MTA move Monday, when the transit agency’s board unanimously declared an impasse that shut down the negotiating process. By law, that cleared the way for the MTA to stop dealing with union leadership and take what it described as a last, best and final offer directly to workers.

The decision angered many in the union, partly because the MTA vote skirted union leadership, appointed by rank-and-file members to speak for them. Union members also knew the move allowed the MTA to legally enforce the latest contract offer and hire replacement workers, although transit officials say that is not being considered.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, chairman of the MTA board, said the transit agency has made a strong offer that deserves a vote by members of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1277.

“Let the discussion in the union percolate after they see this offer, which we think is a good one, and let’s see what happens,” Yaroslavsky said, noting that mechanics missed their first paycheck this week. “We want them to push for a vote.”

The MTA’s standing offer focuses largely on a $17-million fund that the union uses to buy health care for its workers. The fund is nearly insolvent and the two sides do not agree on how it got that way. The union says rising health-care costs caused the problem and that the fund needs to be replenished. The transit agency says the union mismanaged the fund.

The contract offer calls for the immediate infusion of $4.7 million to return the fund to solvency. It also proposes that the MTA co-manage the fund and freeze monthly contributions for retirees at current levels. Monthly contributions on behalf of active workers would increase in yearly increments by a total of 44% while wages would increase by about 3% over the life of the contract, which ends in 2006.

Silver and his board decided late Thursday against allowing mechanics to vote on the offer, which they said is inadequate. The union wants the MTA to immediately contribute $6.3 million to the health fund and increase benefits for active and retired employees. The union says it has agreed to share management of the fund, which had been a sore spot in negotiations.

MTA officials say they can recall only one other time the agency has declared a negotiating impasse -- in the middle of a 32-day drivers strike in 2000.

Most transit officials interviewed this week said declaring an impasse was the product of sheer frustration with a union that they feel is doing little to end the dispute.

“We were at rock bottom,” said county Supervisor and MTA board member Yvonne Brathwaite Burke.

The MTA and the union began negotiations 17 months ago. The transit agency complains that it has given five contract offers to the union during that time and that Silver has not allowed a vote on any of them. Silver said that is because the contracts steadily worsened and that his workers loudly voiced displeasure with the offers when they voted in January to authorize a strike.

Over the last month, the two sides have met roughly a dozen times. Those talks accomplished little, with almost no face-to-face bargaining and much finger-pointing.

On Monday, the MTA’s negotiating team met with the board and the transit agency’s chief executive, Roger Snoble, in Yaroslavsky’s eighth-floor office in the county Hall of Administration. Huddled around a conference table, the team shared the union’s latest response to an MTA proposal. Yaroslavsky said it was a terse, one-page letter that contained, “five lines: yes, yes and no, no, no.”

“The union said: ‘We agree with everything we propose, we disagree with what you propose.’ ... That was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Despite a 9-0 board vote to declare an impasse, some MTA insiders said this week that they were worried about the decision. One top MTA official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “I’m not sure what not talking does to help. To me it just seems that at some point, the only way this thing is going to get solved is someone is going to have to talk one-on-one with them.”

The official expected union leaders to deliver a strong objection.

Statements from the union Friday indicated that prediction was accurate.

Silver said: “As far as our board allowing a vote on their stupid offer they gave us this week, I don’t think so.... It ain’t gonna happen. Here’s our response to that decision they made this week,” he said, before laying out his arbitration offer.

Labor experts had various reactions to the union’s latest bid.

Some said the strategy appeared to be a desperate act by a union that may feel it is in a losing fight.

Tom Webb, a consultant and labor negotiator who represented the MTA in its contract talks with the mechanics in 2000, said that arbitration is a relatively common way of solving labor disputes on the East Coast. Transit agencies in Boston, Washington and Atlanta are among the agencies that have used arbitration in recent years, he said.

Webb noted that there are several forms of arbitration available. They include options in which an arbitrator has to take into account the financial capabilities of a public body, an effort to avert a decision that would cause serious fiscal damage, and a form in which the arbitrator must choose one side’s proposal or the other’s, rather than splitting a decision down the middle.

“Make no mistake, there are risks,” Webb said. “But the risks are shared by both sides. You can have some decisions you think are really bad and that is obviously what the MTA fears. But this is definitely a bold statement by the union. If the MTA doesn’t take this, what is their resolution going to be?”

MTA board Chairman Yaroslavsky, firmly stating that the agency will not agree with arbitration, underscored his opinion that a resolution already exists -- in the MTA’s last, best and final offer.

“What Silver should do is take our offer to a vote,” Yaroslavsky said. “Why is he refusing for his members to have a voice in their own economic destiny? That should be the focus. This arbitration offer is nothing more than a disingenuous ploy.”

Los Angeles Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, who serves on the MTA board but has been barred from participating in the talks because he accepted union campaign contributions before going on the board, expressed frustration and displeasure with the transit agency.

“It’s absolutely outrageous that they are not going to take this,” Villaraigosa said. “After nearly three weeks of a strike we have a chance to end it and they do this? Neither side is excited about arbitration but this is a chance to end a strike that is crippling the city.”

Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn, who is also an MTA board member, declined to be interviewed about the conflict for a third consecutive day. Instead, Hahn, who has also been kept from the negotiations because he accepted union contributions, issued a statement urging both sides to quickly reach a contract agreement.