EDITORIAL
All parties responsible for ending bus strike

The O'ahu bus strike enters its 19th day today.

Enough, already. Get back to the table.

This must end, and it won't end until all parties involved find the willingness to give a little.

The City Council must deliver on its promise to produce $6.8 million in fare hikes, thus obviating a cut of 100,000 bus service hours and layoffs of up to 40 union employees.

Council members have had so much trouble agreeing on a fare increase plan, they may wish they'd instead followed our earlier suggestion that they simply lower their own arbitrary requirement that a minimum of 27 percent of TheBus operating costs come from the fare box. It's that requirement that started the disagreement that led to the strike.

Council members sound seriously tempted to end-run their fare increase difficulties by raising money instead through selling advertising to be posted on bus exteriors.

It may come to that, but we believe this to be much too fundamental a question to adopt under crisis conditions. We fear that allowing outdoor advertising on buses could be the narrow edge of a wedge leading to billboards and even aerial advertising.

The Outdoor Circle has fought long, hard and honorably to prevent that outcome, and its work shouldn't be wasted.

We're particularly unhappy with Councilman Donovan Dela Cruz's amendment, which would tie advertising revenues to discounts and waivers for low-income riders.

It's unfair to pit two deserving groups against each other: those who can't afford to pay full bus fares, and those who seek to preserve the beauty of our island.

The bus drivers find themselves in a horrible position, mostly of their own making. Even if they get everything they demanded, it won't have been worth striking over.

They went on strike trying to win 50-cent increases in each of the last two years of a three-year contract. The drivers, at least those at top scale, have already lost that much by being out.

Teamsters leaders have fumbled in communicating a persuasive message to the public. Meanwhile, the city's PR operation has turned public opinion against the drivers, not entirely fairly.

Because the city suggested it, everyone now compares the drivers' wages with those of teachers and police officers. It's not the drivers' fault we pay teachers and police officers so poorly; it's our fault. But doesn't it make as much sense to compare the drivers to, say, stevedores or nurses, who recently received big pay increases? Or bus drivers on the Mainland? (Drivers in San Diego get less than here; drivers in San Francisco get more.)

The city also has sold the public on the notion that "there is no money" for a pay raise, and that is a tougher issue to deal with.

It's true there is no willingness on the part of the city to pay for a raise. But it's not true that money can't be found. The question is where it would come from, and whether taxpayers would support the tradeoffs involved.

There is nothing to gain in an attempt to make the drivers lose face and crawl back to work. The public's interest is in getting the drivers back on the road quickly.

That won't happen until the city and the drivers find the willingness to compromise, and the council delivers on its promise.