Bus, Rail Strike Averted for Now

Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials and union negotiators appeared to temporarily avert a potentially devastating strike Monday night when two of three unions agreed to short extensions of their old contracts.

The third union rejected an extension, but late Monday its president indicated there would be normal bus and rail service in Los Angeles today.

Neil Silver, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents 1,860 mechanics, told reporters at 9 p.m., “It’s not our intent to go out on strike.”

Silver’s reluctance to agree to an extension meant the threat of a potential strike remains this week.

With negotiations dragging and rhetoric heating up, union leaders representing nearly 4,950 other transit workers worked out agreements Monday with the MTA to help keep buses and trains running, at least temporarily.

Both the United Transportation Union, which represents MTA bus and rail operators, and the Transportation Communications International Union, which represents MTA clerks, agreed to five-day contract extensions. They also agreed to give five additional days’ notice before striking.

Negotiations for an extension continued late Monday evening with leaders of the mechanics union. ,

A strike would all but shut down bus and rail service to the MTA’s 450,000 daily customers. At issue are new three-year contracts for transit workers that have put unions and managers at loggerheads for months.

“None of the three unions we are negotiating with is planning on going out [Tuesday],” Allan Lipsky, chief operating officer for the MTA, said Monday afternoon. “Productivity rules are complex issues; we need time to work them out.”

With a 60-day cooling off period granted earlier in the summer expiring at 12:01 a.m. today, negotiators for both sides said they were still far apart on new contracts.

Two of the MTA’s three big unions--those representing the drivers and the mechanics--have already authorized strikes.

“They have a long way to go,” said MTA spokesman Marc Littman. “We don’t want a strike. We want more time to try to work things out.”

The MTA had said it would extend the terms of the current contract but wanted an agreement by all three unions that they would give a five-day notice before calling a strike.

“We are willing to grant a reasonable extension,” said Lawrence Drasin, attorney for the United Transportation Union.

Drasin said there might come a time when the union will decide that further delays are no longer productive. “We don’t think that time has come yet.”

Both sides said little if anything was accomplished during the 60-day cooling off period to bring the two sides together on proposed changes in work rules, workers’ compensation reforms and pension benefits.

Both sides expressed frustration about the lack of progress over the Labor Day weekend.

On Sunday, talks did not get under way until 5 p.m. and lasted only about three hours.

On Monday, talks weren’t scheduled until 1 p.m. with the Amalgamated Transit Union. That union led the last MTA transit strike in July 1994, which lasted nine days.

Silver, president of the mechanics union, said MTA negotiators seemed to be deliberately dragging out negotiations.

“It’s not rational what’s happening,” Silver said. “They are unprepared at the table and have an ‘I don’t care’ attitude.”

Representatives of the transit agency blamed the slow pace on the unions.

“We have a roomful of frustrated MTA people who have spent the Labor Day weekend wanting to negotiate a contract but who have been unable to do so,” said MTA spokesman Barry Liden.

In the event of a strike, the MTA plans to run a much abbreviated schedule of 100 buses, instead of the 2,000 it runs on a normal business day. The Metro Blue Line and Red Line subway would be closed.

The skeleton schedule calls for buses to run on five lines into the Westside, the San Fernando Valley, South Los Angeles, East Los Angeles and Hollywood and central Los Angeles. Normally, the MTA runs buses on 200 different lines.

Municipal bus lines in Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Long Beach and other cities would continue to operate. Metrolink commuter trains, which serve downtown L.A. from Ventura, San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange counties, would continue to operate.