Striking Drivers Dog Greyhound Terminals
Striking_Greyhound bus drivers are yelling "scab" across the nation for the second day today as they try to block buses in Philadelphia and elsewhere during the big strike.
Dozens of striking drivers yesterday picketed the Center City terminal, at 10th and Filbert streets, and jeered "scab" at bus drivers trying to cross the line. They turned away an empty bus trying to enter at 3:20 p.m., circling it until its driver reversed and fled in a cloud of diesel fumes.
Earlier, about 20 strikers blocked a pair of empty Greyhounds from leaving the station. Police officers, however, positioned themselves between the buses and the strikers, allowing the vehicles to creep onto the street and get away.
Greg Conway, picket captain at the 10th and Filbert terminal, said he expects the company to try again today. He warned, "We'll block any bus that tries to come out."
Another striker said three buses loaded with passengers "snuck out" of the terminal early yesterday while police officers questioned pickets about a report that one of the strikers had a gun.
Across the country, the strike against the company was mostly peaceful. But in Chicago, the company and passengers reported two shootings on a bus or terminal - neither involving injury.
Greyhound Lines Inc., which employs 6,300 drivers, said it was operating 20 percent of its system with 700 newly hired replacements, plus about 1,100 unionists who crossed picket lines.
Money is the central issue.
The strike by members of the Amalgamated Transit Union began yesterday at 2:01 a.m. after negotiations broke off in Scotsdale, Ariz. No new talks were scheduled.
Greyhound drivers, who according to the company earned an average of $24,743 last year, took a 22 percent pay cut three years ago. The company is offering a first-year raise of 6.9 percent, but the union says the offer amounts to a mere 2 percent.
The union is the official bargaining agent for about 9,300 Greyhound workers. Besides the drivers, the union represents 3,075 maintenance and office workers.
Immediately after the strike was called, bus drivers took their passengers to the next stop, then parked, stranding thousands of passengers.
For those travellers, there were enormous frustrations yesterday.
"We got a warning three red lights down the street that they were going on strike," said Frank Rzepski, of Philadelphia, who was waiting yesterday in Indianapolis. "It's getting to the point where we're ready to go out there and fire one of the buses up, run over the strikers and say, 'See ya.' "
Among the passengers stranded here was Beverly Justice, a Pentecostal minister who was headed home to San Antonio, Tex., after a year on the road. Justice said she was literally left out in the cold when the Philadelphia terminal closed.
"I'm so tired of marching up and down to keep warm, I can't talk," she said yesterday morning.
Many of the stranded riders turned to Amtrak, which announced it would honor validated Greyhound tickets on its trains when buses are not available.
An official at 30th Street Station said about 50 would-be bus passengers showed up at the station shortly after the strike began and camped out for several hours awaiting trains to Washington, New York and Boston.
Amtrak spokeswoman Cliff Black reported a "moderate increase" in rail traffic yesterday, particularly in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg and Richmond, Va.
Greyhound, which bought Continental Trailways in 1987, is the only nationwide bus company, although scores of regional bus lines are scattered throughout the country. Some hoped to take advantage of Greyhound's troubles.
A trade association urged federal regulators to allow regional companies to step quickly into the void created by the strike. The Interstate Commerce
Commission, which regulates intercity buses, said it would keep its regional office in Philadelphia open late last night and all day today to process applications from other bus companies that want to serve Greyhound routes.
The ICC has the power to grant short-term emergency permits. It was unclear whether anyone had applied.
Greyhound offers a $68 one-way ticket to anywhere in the country and generally caters to people seeking the cheapest form of mass transit. The company carried 22 million passengers last year, an average of about 60,000 a day. It serves about 9,500 destinations, including about 9,000 where it provides the only intercity transportation.
Union leaders said the company's final contract offer, delivered through a federal mediator, differed little from the proposal that 92 percent of the union members who voted on it last month turned down.
"No significant changes had been made in management's offer," union president Edward M. Strait said.
Greyhound officials, however, said the 11th-hour proposal contained significant concessions that were rejected out of hand by the union leadership.
"It was absolutely not the same offer," spokesman George Gravley said. ''We were engaged in good-faith bargaining, and we assumed the union representatives were, too."
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