Bus employees hopeful contract will be ratified

By Treena Shapiro
Advertiser Staff Writer

If the scene at the Middle Street bus yard is any indication, bus employees are ready to end the strike and get back to work.

At noon yesterday, fewer than 10 strikers were at the bus station. Rather than grimly walking a picket line, they were upbeat, sitting in the shade, talking story, listening to loud music and eating cake.

"We're very optimistic about the proposal being ratified by a majority of membership," said Grifford Tom, a bus clerical worker who was packing up after playing live music for his fellow employees. "To tell you the truth it's not that of good contract, but I think at this point most of us do not want to continue the strike."

The members of the Hawai'i Teamsters and Allied Workers Local 996 will vote from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. today on a new five-year contract. The contract would give workers pay increases in the fourth and fifth year, as well as added benefits to their pension plans in the third, fourth and fifth years.

If the contract is ratified, bus service could resume on Monday and would be free for the first five days.

The ratification would also end the strike by more than 1,300 O'ahu Transit Services employees who left their jobs Aug. 26.

Signs of financial strain were more evident at the Teamsters headquarters at Hart Street yesterday as bus employees sorted through food and drinks donated by various businesses to help out struggling families. Individual packages of Spam, corned beef, corn, pork and beans, and even beer were going to roughly 700 families, with any extras going to families with several children.

Lyle "Bucky" Mattson, 51, a bus driver of 22 years, helped to distribute the food.

For those making the top salaries, strike pay came out to a little more than $300 a week, less than half of a normal week's wages. "It'll going to take us at least a month or two to get back on our feet," Mattson said.

"Unfortunately, when we go back to work our next paycheck won't be until the 22nd."

As the strike stretched on longer than anticipated, bus workers grew more worried, Mattson said.

"Bills was coming in, mortgage payments was coming in, car payments was coming in and we had people that was getting a little bit upset, but we tried to work as a family because we all had bills."

He and his fiancée Harkangel Richards, also a bus driver, could get by on their savings, however. "We didn't really feel the pain that much," he said.

Bus maintenance worker Kenneth Low, 47, a single father, said that the strike forced him to go into his Christmas savings and cut back on spending and eating out. "It's just getting by with the minimum," he said.

Iolani School was accommodating about adjusting his 17-year-old son's tuition payments, he said.

The strike also took a toll on his schedule, as he felt the negotiations were so critical to his future that he was compelled to observe every one.

"That would mean making microwaved dinners for my son, having him home alone, having to do all my family chores with the small pockets of time I had available," he said.

Like many other bus workers, Low was bothered that the public perception was that bus employees went on strike for pay raises, when in reality they were fighting to maintain their existing benefits, he said.

"The message that got out wasn't accurate," he said.

"The only thing we had was our members, and that's what brought us together," Low said. "That's what unified us."

Tom said although some employees criticized the union leadership and failed to show for picket duty, most union members talked to each other and worked as a team. "We always think of ourselves as 'ohana, which is an extended family, but crisis always brings people closest together," he said.

Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8070.