Pickets Drive Home Their Point at Transit Garage

It was 5 a.m. Tuesday when substitute drivers began arriving at the Orange County Transit District vehicle garage in Garden Grove. Blocking the entrance were about 35 pickets.

Carrying signs and parading in circles in front of the driveway on Woodbury Road near Harbor Boulevard, the striking bus drivers shivered in the early morning air and told the newcomers to go away.

“Just turn around,” strike captain Gale Torino, 44, shouted to the substitute drivers, many of whom were supervisors. “You don’t want to be here.”

The strikers, members of United Transportation Union, began around-the-clock picketing just after midnight Sunday and after Sunday night’s vote to reject OCTD’s contract offer. Determined to show their displeasure with the district, the strikers were picketing in six-hour shifts outside the garages’ driveway, briefly blocking each vehicle coming and going.

The strikers said they feel that the action is necessary because the Transit District is continuing to operate bus service on some lines. The drivers are management personnel, trainees with valid bus-driving licenses and a handful of union drivers who are crossing the picket lines.

As calls of “scab,” “traitor,” and “double-crosser” ricocheted across the driveway in the morning darkness, strikers stopped each vehicle for 30 seconds as part of an agreement with district security guards so that the police would not have to intervene. Two Garden Grove police officers stood by, observing.

“We are not going to gain anything by being violent and disorderly,” said Torino, a driver for about five years. “This isn’t a 1960s revolution.”

Police agreed that the strikers have been orderly, presenting no major problems. The only complaints have been about illegally parked cars and loud music from the picket lines, Garden Grove Police Lt. Larry Hodges said.

As the number of strikers slowly grew to 30 Tuesday morning, those on the picket line took their time moving from the paths of incoming autos and departing buses. As her fellow strikers laughed, Mary Everett, 28, a bus driver for 6 1/2 years, made a show of protest by dragging her feet as she avoided a bus.

Everett, a Garden Grove resident and mother of two, said her husband had advised her to cross the picket line.

“Yeah, we got bills,” she said. “I’ve got car payments and house payments. But I believe in . . . sticking with everybody. This is more important.”

Steve Mitchell, 43, a driver for six years, parked his camper nearby and put large stereo speakers on the pavement. He then proceeded to play rock music, entertaining pickets and prompting noise complaints from surrounding residential areas.

“I think (the pickets) needed a bit of a pickup. I want them to be in high spirits,” Mitchell said.

Every time a bus was driven out, Mitchell played “We Will Rock You,” and the strikers sang along, “We will stop you.”

“We’re just trying to be highly visible and bring to the foreground the resilience of the OCTD drivers,” Torino said. “We’re willing to weather the storm to get a fair and equitable contract. We’re just being tenacious.”

Looking at a supervisor who was steering a bus out of the driveway amid the throng of strikers, Torino laughed.

“You know, it’s kind of funny about these supervisors driving so early in the morning,” he said as the driver tried to wipe the windshield with his hand. “Hopefully, they (will) become aware of how hard it is to drive these buses. Nothing works in those darn buses.”

Strike captain Roy Kirkley, 35, a Garden Grove resident who supports two children, has been a bus driver for 9 1/2 years. He began his shift on the picket line at 4 a.m. Tuesday. Kirkley said he realized that his income was going to suffer after Sunday’s vote to strike.

“Right now, I have to live with my brother to save some money,” Kirkley said, looking over a list of pickets. But I was determined that we (strikers) stick together until we get OCTD back to the table to negotiate.”

Craig Lauder, 38, agreed. Lauder, a driver for five years, had also started picketing at 4 a.m. With three children to support, Lauder said he thought about the money he would lose.

‘Rather Hurt Now’

“I talked to my kids and they told me, ‘Dad, do what you have to do,’ ” Lauder said. “I (would) rather hurt a few weeks now than hurt three years later if this contract was passed.”

Jim Shepherd, 39, said he thought about Christmas and the possibility of having little money for gifts. A driver for about 11 years, he resents what he called the district’s “unfair negotiating.”

“They’re treating us like kids, giving us the contract and telling us to sign it,” Shepherd said. “We’re not third-graders. We’re grown up.”

The strikers are prepared to stay a while, Shepherd said.

“I stand behind what I believe, and I hope and pray it doesn’t go beyond a long period of time,” Shepherd said. “No one likes this. No one gains from this.”