Teamsters vow to continue bus strike
By Gordon Y.K. Pang
Advertiser Staff Writer
A top official with the parent organization of the union representing more than 1,300 striking bus workers today said that the membership will stay on the picket line for as long as it takes to get its point across.
Jim Santangelo, vice president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said, "The strike begins today."
Santangelo, who arrived in Honolulu yesterday, said that the parent organization of the Hawaii Teamsters and Allied Workers Local 996, is prepared to give striking workers up to $500 more a week in strike benefits if it is necessary to help workers stay strong.
Union members on strike are getting about $200 a week.
Santangelo also criticized Oahu Transit Services president Jim Cowen and Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris for not offering any wage increases to the workers.
Santangelo vowed, "We need to get the company to agree we're not going to take a zero-zero-zero."
"We have been willing to go back to the table at any time," Roger Morton, OTS vice president, said today in response to Santangelo's comments.
No new talks were scheduled as of this morning in the 23-day-old strike.
Negotiations between O'ahu Transit Services, the city's contracted operator of TheBus, and the Hawai'i Teamsters and Allied Workers Local 996 broke off last Wednesday night.
Santangelo may sit at the table across from OTS when talks resume, said Mike Chambrella, an in-house attorney for the local organization.
"There's a possibility," Chambrella said. Primarily, Santangelo is in town to "coordinate assistance from the international."
The key stumbling block in the negotiations continues to be wages and pension benefits.
The union is seeking a three-year proposal and is willing to accept no increases in the first year, provided raises of 50 cents an hour in both wages and pension benefits are included in the second and third year, respectively.
The company wants the strikers to forgo raises in salaries and benefits in the first and second years, with an opportunity for the union to return to the bargaining table and ask for wage and benefit increases for the third year.
The company has offered the Teamsters a 90-day "cooling off" period that allows strikers to return to work while the two sides continue negotiations, a proposal the union declined.
