With Teamsters International official Jim Santangelo leading the way, union leaders from the Hawai'i Teamsters and Allied Workers Local 996 visited the Perry & Price morning talk show on KSSK Radio, hoping to generate public support for the walkout.

But as Santangelo urged a return to negotiations, there were name-calling arguments, shouted accusations of lying and snide remarks about union thuggery, solidarity and government sincerity from both callers and the Teamsters.

To paraphrase one caller, who listened to it as she drove her children to school: It was just like professional wrestling.

From the very start of the radio show, Santangelo pleaded with O'ahu Transit Services to resume labor negotiations. And he promised several times that he could end the strike.

(By mid-day, neither side had moved any closer to negotiations, which are not scheduled any time soon, said Roger Morton, vice president for the bus company.)

"The sooner we sit down, this thing will be all over with," Santangelo said to listeners.

He urged the federal mediator to call both sides to the table. The strike is in its 24th day today.

"We are willing to sit down and talk about putting these people back to work," he said.

Mayor Jeremy Harris, who listened to some of the show while driving a city shuttle van from Kalihi, said he found the whole thing amazing, noting that the Teamsters radio comments were "bald-faced misrepresentations to the public."

"It is obvious this union boss, Mr. Santangelo, has flown into town and obviously doesn’t know what is going on," Harris said after the show.

The major hang-up at the bargaining table has been over increases in wages and pension benefits. The company is offering a three-year contract with no wage increases in the first and second years, but the possibility for negotiating increases in the third year. The union is willing to accept wage and pension freezes the first year, but wants increases in the second and third years.

Some calls of support

There were calls of support for both Santangelo and the union bus workers, but they seemed lost when emotion took over.

One caller said the 1,300 striking bus workers should be thankful to have a job. Another caller said Santangelo was "a thug from the Mainland."

"Is that maybe because I was born and raised in New Jersey and I am a first-generation Italian-American?" Santangelo said. "That makes me a thug? I love my people. They’re going to win."

Santangelo arrived from Los Angeles on Tuesday, vowing to support the strikers with as much as $500 a week in strike benefits. As the calls continued today, he repeatedly said he could end the strike.

"This can be over tomorrow," he said. "I guarantee you that if you sit down with me tomorrow or today, this thing can get done."

Few callers appeared to believe that.

'We are really bad’

One woman caller said the teachers, who went on strike in 2001, accepted what was offered, and suggested that the bus workers were wrong to dig in their heels. She noted that teachers make less than bus workers. Bus workers make between $15.26 and $21.17 an hour.

"Oh we’re so bad because we drive buses and make a decent living," Santangelo said. "Yeah, we are really bad people."

Then a bus driver called to tell Santangelo he did not support the strike. When another bus driver called to say she felt the same way, she was chastised by Santangelo — and by talk-show co-host Michael W. Perry, who said she had drunk too much caffeine.

"I want to say this to the people who are not walking the picket line: Shame on you," Santangelo said.

Local Teamsters president Mel Kahele was also in the studio, taking calls — and digs from callers — during the show.

He said OTS pushed the union to a strike and that the union contract offer was fair. But when the father of a bus driver grew angry over the strike vote, the conversation heated up once more.

"Why don’t you stop lying, brother?" Kahele said, his voice raised.

Shouts punctuate call

The very next caller, another bus driver not walking the picket line, attacked Kahele and the union. She said that union leaders changed key bargaining issues after the strike began.

Kahele shouted and she shouted back.

"Where you are getting that, I am not sure," Kahele said. "Maybe you should get out there and walk the line, sister."

Santangelo told listeners that he seen similar dissension during other strikes and other towns where the public support was not strong.

"We have a march tomorrow," he said. "Come out and join us."

With no talks scheduled, it is unclear what will happen next. After the show, Harris defended OTS, saying the company has made it clear it will return to labor talks "at a moment’s notice."

"Calling for returning to the table is completely disingenous," he said. "All they have to do is come back."

The public got a clear picture today of union politics, Harris said.

"I thought it was interesting that they had to fight off their own membership," Harris said of the union leaders.

"The membership was critical of their whole handling of the strike. They questioned their truthfulness."