EDITORIAL
City handcuffs itself in bus strike dilemma
| • | Beat bus-strike blues by walking or cycling |
The people of Honolulu did a good job of weathering the first day of a strike by city bus drivers, but this will get old fast.
There is no cliché more trite than the one that says no one wins from a strike. So why do we find ourselves in the position of proving it all over again?
The current sentiment around town seems to fix blame for the strike on the bus drivers, because they already make more money than public workers like police, firefighters and teachers. That is an interesting, but perhaps not perfectly apt, comparison, since the drivers, at least nominally, are in the private sector.
In principle, we're comfortable letting market forces set a worker's wage. But what are the market forces here? In a time when most workers whose salary comes out of taxpayer pockets have endured modest pay hikes at best, how hard should the relatively well-paid drivers push?
But beyond those issues, there is another structural problem. The city long ago gave the drivers the right to bargain and, when that fails, to strike. That fact has been bearing down on us with all the momentum of a city express bus; no one suggests the expiration date of the drivers' last contract came as a surprise.
In saying that it now has no money at all for the drivers, the city is saying in effect that the strike can only end when the drivers admit total defeat. That's eminently impractical. The drivers say they are prepared to endure a strike for up to three months. But are we — and more to the point, is our economy?
The problem here is not that the city government is stubborn, but that it is paralyzed.
The City Council has — perhaps with the best of intentions — rendered the city administration and the bus company powerless to bargain with the drivers in a manner likely to produce a settlement fair and equitable to drivers, riders and taxpayers.
The council requires that between 27 percent and 33 percent of bus operating costs must come from the fare box. When the fare box contribution dropped below 27 percent, the city was forced to propose cutting bus service, resulting in 40 layoffs. The drivers promptly advised that such cuts were among the conditions that would trigger a strike.
The council thus had two alternatives: It could raise fares to avert route cutbacks, or lower the proportion of operating costs recovered from fares.
In a difficult budget year, the council was reluctant to try to find additional money to further subsidize TheBus. So fares went up.
To their credit, council members have committed to raise $6.8 million through fare increases, thus averting service cutbacks and layoffs.
Unhappily, that action solves only one of the many issues the drivers have brought to the table. And since the new fare increases now bring the fare box proportion of operating costs up to their self-imposed 33 percent ceiling, money for those additional demands cannot be raised through further fare increases.
We support the principle that a significant part of TheBus operating costs should come from the fare box. We also believe that a far larger proportion must come from the city's tax base.
In what seemed a reasonable attempt to firmly fix the proportion of bus costs that must come from the fare box, the council has limited the city's ability to adjust fares to maximize ridership and maintain service — a benefit for everyone on the road.
What's worse, this policy has handcuffed the city's ability to settle what could be a long and unnecessary bus strike.
