Having failed to reach a deal in 28 hours of talks, negotiators for the Orange County Transportation Authority and striking Teamster union bus drivers will resume discussions Wednesday morning as the work stoppage enters its fifth day. "We've made some progress," Art Leahy, the agency's chief executive officer, said Tuesday in discussing a marathon session.
Leahy told reporters that the two sides were about $700,000 in their discussion about a proposal that offers the drivers a 14.6 percent raise over the next three years. Patrick Kelly, the Teamsters Local 952 union boss, said the sides were about $500,000 apart.
Kelly also complained that, while he had been willing to continue talks into the night, OCTA walked away. He said the union received a counter-proposal about 4 p.m. Tuesday, after which the OCTA team left for the day.
"We said 'Stay, so we can talk about your proposal ... let us discuss your proposal so we can continue to meet and we can get a contract,'" Kelly told reporters. "And they said, 'No, we're tired. We're going to go home. We're going to come back tomorrow.'"
Negotiations were scheduled to resume early Wednesday morning.
OCTA announced Tuesday that it would put two additional lines in service along major corridors on Monday and hire 15 new drivers if the strike - a huge disruption for thousands of commuters - drags on into next week.
The move does not indicate pessimism regarding the talks, officials said.
But Kelly fumed over it.
"It signals to me, the more arrogance from this outfit," Kelly said. "You know how much it cost to train 15 coach operators? It cost about $150,000 to train 15 people ... I would be careful if I rode those lines. I don't know how qualified those people are. Our people are very qualified. I can't vouch for anybody's safety riding with those people."
"They'll be probably strike breakers," Kelly said of the new hires. "God help anybody if they ride that bus and I hope nobody gets run over and killed."
Leahy said it will take about three weeks to fully train the new drivers, who he said are being hired as agency employees.
Leahy said that as of Tuesday, there had been no change in a major stumbling block -- that the union wants raises to go to senior drivers instead of those with less than five years on the job.
However, Kelly said the union changed its stance on that and now is willing to "put $500,000 into raising the wages of new people."
(knbc.com)
