Official arrives to assist Teamsters

By Gordon Y.K. Pang
Advertiser Staff Writer

A key official with the parent organization of the union representing more than 1,300 striking bus workers arrived in Honolulu yesterday to meet with local leaders.

That was the only tangible development yesterday in the 23-day-old bus strike.

No new talks were scheduled and neither management nor the union were anticipating any resumption of bargaining in the immediate future. 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.

Jim Santangelo, a vice president with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, 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."

Chambrella noted that the international is providing strike fund money for the union membership, a weekly allotment of about $200 for each employee. "He's come down here to see if there's anything else they can do to assist us," Chambrella said.

The key stumbling block 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 to hammer out negotiations, a proposal the union declined.

Reach Gordon Y.K. Pang at 525-8070 or e-mail at gpang@honoluluadvertiser.com.