MTA Bus, Train Operators OK Strike if No Accord Is Reached by June 30

Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus and train operators overwhelmingly authorized their union leaders Monday to call a strike if negotiators fail to agree on a new contract by midnight June 30.

MTA officials, however, said they were making progress toward a settlement. “I’m very optimistic that we will be able to avoid a work stoppage,” said Raman Raj, MTA managing director of employee and labor relations.

Even as talks continued at a downtown hotel, the United Transportation Union rank and file authorized a strike by a 2,650-279 vote.

No date was set for a possible walkout. An MTA spokesman cautioned that talks can continue beyond June 30 without a work stoppage. A nine-day strike in 1994 occurred about three weeks after contracts expired. There was a 68-day walkout in 1974.

“We have pledged to our members that we will do everything within our power to reach a settlement without a work stoppage,” said James Williams, general chairman of the United Transportation Union.

The MTA has already prepared a contingency plan that calls for using private bus drivers and nonunion personnel to operate 350 buses on the busiest routes. But that still would leave about three-fourths of riders without service. On a typical day, the MTA rolls out 1,750 buses.

Service on the rail lines would continue but at a reduced level.

There are about 1 million daily boardings on MTA buses, and 100,000 boardings on rail lines.

Contracts expire at midnight June 30 for 6,300 drivers, mechanics and clerks represented by the United Transportation Union, the Amalgamated Transit Union and the Transportation Communications Union.

Gov. Pete Wilson can seek a court order imposing a 60-day cooling-off period to delay a strike. But the MTA board has urged Wilson not to intervene for fear that delaying a strike until September would hit students returning to school.

MTA management is seeking about $20 million in savings through increased contracting out of bus lines, reduction in the hourly rate for future bus drivers, elimination of automatic cost-of-living increases and increased use of part-time drivers to reduce overtime costs. Officials have pledged no layoffs and no reductions in the wage rate and benefits of current union workers.

The agency will begin running newspaper ads today advising riders of a possible strike and terming negotiations an effort “to serve our customers better, operate more competitively and use public funds more efficiently.”