Teamsters, callers spar over strike
By Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer
The Teamsters, saying the Honolulu media is not giving the public an accurate account of the bus workers strike, marched confidently into the KSSK Radio studio yesterday to set the record straight.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
What they got, however, was a verbal brawl.
Jim Santangelo, a vice president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, expressed confidence that the bus strike could be resolved soon.
As guests of morning disc jockeys Michael W. Perry and Larry Price, Teamsters International official Jim Santangelo and officials from the Hawai'i Teamsters and Allied Workers Local 996 were allowed to address the public directly.
From the beginning, Santangelo, who arrived from the Mainland on Tuesday, pleaded with O'ahu Transit Services to resume labor negotiations. He asked the federal mediator to call the sides back and insisted several times that he could end the strike.
"The sooner we sit down, this thing will be all over with," Santangelo said.
But the guests became defensive with the first negative comment. The rest was talk-show drama.
There were name-calling arguments, shouted accusations of lying, not to mention snide remarks about union thuggery, solidarity and government sincerity from both callers and the Teamsters.
To paraphrase one caller, who listened to the dispute as she drove her children to school: It was just like professional wrestling.
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.
There were calls of praise 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's arrival has boosted union morale. He has vowed to support the strikers with as much as $500 a week in strike benefits.
As he spoke yesterday, his confident, can-do attitude was static-free.
"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.
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 radio host 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 also was in the studio, taking calls — and digs from callers.
Kahele 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.
The very next caller, another bus driver not walking the picket line, attacked Kahele and the union. She said union leaders changed key bargaining issues after the strike began.
Kahele shouted. She shouted him down.
"Where you are getting that, I am not sure," Kahele said after she was finished. "Maybe you should get out there and walk the line, sister."
Santangelo told listeners that he seen similar dissension during other strikes and in other towns where the public support was not strong.
"We have a march tomorrow," he said, referring to today's rally. "Come out and join us."
After the show, Harris defended OTS, saying the company has made it clear that it will return to labor talks "at a moment's notice."
"Calling for returning to the table is completely disingenuous," he said. "All they have to do is come back."
Harris charged Teamsters officials with ignoring an angry membership and challenged them to put the company's current contract offer to a vote.
"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."
Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8012.
