Morning traffic eased up today, with city officials agreeing that far fewer cars were on the streets as people decided a four-day weekend sounded a lot better than another day of traffic battles.

Cheryl Soon, City Department of Transportation Services director, said "people historically take off the Friday before a three-day weekend," and the chance to avoid horrendous traffic apparently encouraged many to take a long weekend.

Representatives of the city and the workers came together face to face yesterday in their first contract talks since the strike began Tuesday. Early on, both sides seemed hopeful that an agreement could be reached by day's end but OTS spokeswoman Marilyn Dicus said negotiations soured around 9 p.m. when talks returned to wage increases.

"Heated words were exchanged," she said, which stopped direct negotiations. After that, Dicus said, "We used the mediator to shuttle back and forth between the rooms."

Dicus said if the two sides don't schedule new negotiations soon, the mediator said that she would call them together so they don't go too long without talks.

Both sides left the meeting rooms unhappy after about six hours of talks and a 90-minute dinner break. No new negotiations are scheduled, making it likely that the strike would last through the Labor Day weekend.

The two sides could not even agree on the facts over layoffs and wages.

Mel Kahele, president of the Hawai'i Teamsters and Allied Workers Local 996, said OTS insisted on a three-year salary freeze and said the company could not guarantee there would be no layoffs beyond the first year of the contract. Kahele said the union could have lived with that no-layoff provision, but could not accept that and no raises.

Mayor Jeremy Harris this morning called the union's negotiations "erratic" after first insisting the strike was about possible layoffs and loss of benefits, then asking for pay raises last night.

"I am very disappointed that the union chose to walk away from the bargaining table yet again," Harris said this morning.

Harris said he and the City Council have made it clear that the city will not increase pay for the "already very handsomely paid" bus drivers, not in a week or a month.

"The taxpayers can't afford it and the bus riders can't afford it," Harris said. "It's pointless to go out on strike for something that is an impossibility."

But OTS negotiator Perry Confalone said the company did guarantee no layoffs over three years unless the city couldn't provide enough money to run the bus system or "in the event of an act of God or terrorism that collapsed the economy, then we would revisit that issue." Confalone also said that the company proposed a two-year salary freeze but was open to negotiating a possible increase in the third year.

Kahele said the latest union offer was a "reasonable proposal" that conceded no wage increases the first year but asked for increases of 50 cents an hour in the second and third years. Through Wednesday, the union had asked for 40 cents-an-hour increases in each of the three years of the contract.

"The year they're having problems with is this fiscal year and we understand that," he said.

"What concerns us is that we don't understand the motive of why the company is keeping us out on strike," Kahele said.

Confalone said the negotiations have been "like a moving target. They've gone on record as proposing a status quo agreement. We've proposed a status quo agreement and more."

Further, "they said that wages were not the issue and tonight they're holding out for more wages."

Kahele said, however, that "for the first year, wages are not the issue."

The company asked if they could meet again today but the union leadership refused, Confalone said. Kahele, when asked if the strike would last through the weekend, replied: "We'll be striking up until the time the company decides on wanting to be reasonable."

The Teamsters agreed to resume talks with OTS on Wednesday after Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris asked the bus company's president to guarantee there would be no layoffs or cuts in benefits once the Honolulu City Council approves a fare increase. OTS is a private non-profit contractor negotiating for the city.