OCTD Drivers’ Strike : Timing Seen as Cause for Failure of Walkout

David Lockman, who has driven an Orange County Transit District bus nine years, believes that the strike last month by United Transportation Union Local 19 was doomed from the beginning.

To Lockman, the timing was all wrong, although he voted to strike. When approximately 730 bus drivers walked out Dec. 8, Christmas was less than three weeks away. And that, says the 32-year-old father of three children all under the age of 10, left the union without leverage.

In explanations of why the strike ended as it did--with drivers calling it off and simply returning to work without a contract--outside labor experts and those close to the events often cited timing. They also mention something else: The odds, it appears, were against the strike from the beginning.

Mei Bickner, a labor arbitrator who also teaches at Cal State Fullerton, said the threat of hiring replacement drivers is tough to overcome during a strike today. Ten years ago, before changes in federal law, companies could not hire replacement workers during a strike. That is no longer true, Bickner said.

Now, companies that directly serve the public, such as utilities and mass transit, may replace striking workers. The strikers are not fired, simply replaced. The gamble by management is that when the strike ends, the company may have more workers than it needs.

OCTD bus drivers returned to work Dec. 22. Only days before, the transit district had threatened to begin hiring permanent replacements on that date for all the drivers who were not back on the job.

“Strikes have not been terribly successful when management can replace workers,” Bickner said. “The important thing is: ‘Can you pull off a strike?’ And apparently they were not able to. It’s very difficult to call a strike these days.”

The drivers went back to work, seemingly having lost more than they gained. Today, they are working without a contract, and the district unilaterally has instituted several key provisions of its last offer, claiming that there was an impasse in negotiations.

One driver, who asked not to be identified, said he supported the strike, but in retrospect believes it might have been called too hastily.

“We were out two weeks and nothing was accomplished,” he said. “We didn’t win a thing.”

Kenneth Woodley, a union vice chairman who went back to work before the union decided to end the strike, claimed that the union membership was not fully informed of the negotiations with the transit district before the strike was called.

Woodley, who was Local 19 chief Juliene Smith’s main rival in her bid to head the union four years ago, criticized Smith and said she should not have called for a strike vote.

‘Strike Was a Waste’

“I think it was a power thing, an ego thing with her,” said Woodley, who also claimed he was omitted from strategy sessions. “To me, the strike was a waste. I saw that ahead of time, and that was one of the reasons I came back to work.”

When the vote to strike was taken Dec. 7, it was a double-edged decision. In one vote, the union members decided not only to reject the transit district’s last contract offer, but also to walk off their jobs. Unions frequently take two separate votes in such situations--one on whether to accept the contract offer and another on whether to authorize a strike.

Smith, 38, a former bus driver who has headed the union since late 1982, said that has never been the practice with her union.

“It was an either-or vote--that’s the way it’s always been done in this shop,” she said.

Although there has been little public criticism of Smith from union members, she does confirm that the bus drivers are “very unhappy” about the outcome of the strike. But she said the members are angry with the district, not with her leadership.

The union had worked without a contract for six weeks before the strike was called. When asked why the union did not choose to continue working through Christmas and perhaps threaten the district with a strike later, Smith said the district left the union leadership no choice.

‘Last and Final’ Offer

She said negotiations broke off three days before the strike, when the district extended its “last and final” contract offer.

“The district dictated our actions when they said, ‘This is our final offer,’ ” Smith said.

David Schultz, president of Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union Local 681, recently negotiated a contract with the Disneyland Hotel. The employees he represented worked 10 months without a contract while negotiations continued.

“We handled it by striking on the job,” Schultz said. “Our employees worked and then were free to picket when they got off work. Sometimes, this tactic creates great pressure. I don’t know very much about the bus strike, but they might have been better off working and fighting.”

In San Francisco, where there has not been a major strike by bus drivers in 31 years, a negotiator for the agency that runs the bus system there said last week that he believed it would have been much wiser for the Local 19 leadership to find some alternative--any alternative--to a strike.

He, too, mentioned the timing.

“The union made a bad move by striking so soon before Christmas,” said George Newkirk, director of labor relations for the the Municipal Rail Service, which transports 900,000 passengers a day in San Francisco and employs more than 2,000 bus drivers.

“It a was a major, major mistake--you never, ever strike before Christmas,” he said.

Panel; of Mayors

Newkirk said the union should have bought time by requesting the intervention of a neutral third party. He suggested that a panel of mayors could have been asked to help prevent a strike.

“You look for somebody, an elected community leader, to step in and help resolve the problem,” he said. “That always works well. We’ve done that three or four times in the last 20 years and it has always prevented a strike.”

Smith, however, scoffed at suggestions that the union leadership should not have forced the drivers to vote for a strike so close to Christmas.

“What does Christmas have to do with it?,” she asked. “We were working without a contract.”

Nonetheless, some drivers say Christmas had quite a lot to do with it.

Said Lockman: “Christmas put pressure on our financial picture. The attitude could have been different if it had happened in July or August. At Christmas time, you want to buy presents and have a tree.”

Lockman also said the district had “more foresight than the union.”

No Pay Raise

For her part, Smith is far from ready to concede defeat. She said last week that she felt the union had not lost and ultimately will win a fair contract for the bus drivers.

Under terms of the contract that transit district officials have said they intend to impose, the drivers will get no pay raise--not even the 7.5% raise over 3 1/2 years that the district had included in its last offer.

In addition, the district says it will:

- Institute terms of a drug-testing program that had been opposed by the union.

- Increase the proportion of part-time drivers from 10% to 20% of the entire driving force.

- Allow specialty routes to be contracted out to private business, rather than using district employees.

It is possible, however, that a court battle could change the complexion of the situation considerably in the long run.

Mary Yunt, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO’s Orange County Central Council, said that, although it appears the transit district won the battle of wits during the strike, the union has not yet lost.

Yunt pointed out that a court could reverse the district’s unilateral imposition of contract provisions.

“And I think that will happen,” she said. “The union has not lost, and I think OCTD is going on a false impression. Working without a contract is not detrimental to the union.”

Forced Into Strike

Yunt said she believes that the union was forced into the strike, although the chances of success were minimal.

“I would not say it was a mistake for the union to strike,” she said. “There had been no movement by management, and they had no choice.

“But I think the timing was on the side of management, and they coldly and calculatingly used that time to get the drivers back. To threaten them with their jobs three days before Christmas gave the union little choice (but to return to work).”

Smith has complained that the transit district is retaliating for the strike by suspending six drivers and firing two union leaders for alleged misconduct during the strike. She said amnesty should have been offered to protect the drivers who went back to work.

But Marlene Heyser, the chief transit district negotiator, said amnesty was not requested by the union.

Some Kind of Raise

With buses back in full service, Heyser said, the district, too, hopes to reach an agreement on a new contract. And she said she believes that the drivers ultimately will get some kind of pay raise.

However, she said she did not foresee any court action that “would adversely affect” the district. “We were at an impasse, and we had bargained in good faith,” she said.

Smith contends that transit district negotiators did not bargain in good faith and could not legally have imposed contract provisions because a true impasse had not occurred. She also said that, despite the drivers being forced back to work without getting a negotiated contract, the union had not lost.

“It is our intention to negotiate this contract to conclusion,” Smith said. “The union is still strong. . . stronger than ever.”