Strike vote set for bus workers
By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Transportation Writer
Honolulu bus riders should brace for a strike later this summer if progress isn't made in contract talks between bus workers and their employer, a union official warned yesterday.
Drivers and other employees of O'ahu Transit Services will hold a strike authorization vote July 21-22, and a strike could follow within several weeks, said Mel Kahele, president of the Hawai'i Teamsters and Allied Workers Local 996.
With no contract talks set until July 17, representatives of both sides turned up the rhetoric yesterday in an increasingly angry dispute over who is responsible for job reductions and service cuts to the island's bus service, which has 225,000 boardings daily.
Perry Confolone, a spokesman for OTS, said contract talks with the Teamsters broke off this week because "all we're getting is summary rejections of our proposals and no attempt to work through the problems with us."
"If the company doesn't back off its proposals, more than likely we'll be on the street in a couple of weeks," Kahele said. "All we're getting right now from them is misinformation and no information."
Kahele said about 100 workers have had their hours reduced and another 40 could lose their full-time jobs under the OTS proposals. He blamed OTS officials for not fighting at the City Council to fend off a $4.2 million budget cut for bus services.
Confolone said OTS operates the bus system under a contract with the city and has to live within the budget set by the city. "We can't go around subverting the authority of employer, the Department of Transportation Services, which sets the operating budget," he said.
Neither city nor OTS officials indicated during the budget process that the cuts would be a serious problem, City Council Budget Chairwoman Ann Kobayashi said yesterday. "They said they were making changes to be more efficient but never anything about having to cut services," Kobayashi said.
In order to deal with an expected $6 million shortfall in its budget this year, OTS recently cut some express bus runs and plans further reductions in August. "People are being crammed into the buses like sardines and they weren't even notified before the changes," Kahele said.
The current contract expired June 30 but has been extended by mutual agreement. Either side has to give 72 hours notice before a strike or lockout can occur.
The union represents about 1,350 drivers, mechanics, clerks and supervisors at OTS, and drivers make between $15 and $21 an hour, Kahele said.
Although the company has proposed a three-year wage freeze, the union is more concerned about job security and proposed cutbacks in holiday, vacation, sick leave and other benefits, Kahele said.
The company is facing additional costs this year, including $1.3 million in pension fund payments that the union began receiving in May, $750,000 more in healthcare costs and a 25 percent increase in its insurance bills, Confolone said.
"We're trying to deal with reality of these things," Confolone said. "The time for posturing is over. We need to get back to the bargaining table and work through these issues. Nothing is going to be accomplished through finger-pointing."
O'ahu's last bus strike was in 1971 when a private company, Honolulu Rapid Transit, ran the service. The strike lasted just under two months and ended when then-Mayor Frank Fasi took over the bus system and created the forerunner of today's service.
