Deal to End MTA Strike Called Close

An agreement to end Los Angeles’ bus strike appeared close late Monday night, as leaders of the drivers union and MTA officials struggled to seal a deal on a new contract.

As midnight neared, Rev. Jesse Jackson, acting as a mediator, shuttled between the two sides in an intense effort to get the MTA and the union to accept a package designed to end the month-old strike.

“We’re close and that’s what’s tough,” said Jackson. “The gap is too small to go another day.”

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, county Supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, Jackson and union leaders huddled in a room in an attempt to iron out final details.

The walkout by bus and train operators has shut down the nation’s second-largest bus system, brought the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s subway and light-rail lines to a standstill and left 450,000 riders struggling to find alternative means of transportation. The walkout has been the longest transit strike in Los Angeles in more than two decades.

But before the buses can roll and the trains run again, any tentative agreement hammered out during a day of intensive talks in Pasadena must be approved by the drivers and the MTA’s board of directors. Two other unions that have honored the drivers’ picket lines since the strike began Sept. 16 also must ratify separate three-year contracts that still must be finalized.

An MTA spokesman said late Monday that buses are fueled and ready to go whenever the drivers return to work. But it will take an extra day or two to get the Metro Rail subway and two light-rail lines back in service because the lines must be electrified, systems checked and stations opened.

The anticipation of a settlement came half a day after a dozen state legislators from Los Angeles County convened a three-hour hearing to probe the causes of the prolonged strike. The lawmakers demanded answers to questions about the agency’s finances and threatened to push legislation to break up the MTA’s powerful governing board.

The angry lawmakers were told that the strike has saved the MTA $10 million to $15 million in labor, fuel and other costs once extraordinary expenses are subtracted.

During the hearing in downtown Los Angeles, MTA officials acknowledged for the first time that those expenses include $1 million on strike-related public relations, including radio, television and print advertising at times sharply critical of striking drivers.

The MTA also revealed that it has paid more than $1 million to labor consultants and to maintain its negotiating headquarters at the Pasadena Hilton.

The strike left bus and train riders scrambling to find alternative means of getting to work, school, shops and doctors. Those dependent on the MTA, mostly the poor and minorities, had to walk, bike, hitchhike, find a ride with friends or family or find other municipal buses.

The strike’s impact was particularly noticeable in normally busy Latino shopping districts. Businesses along Broadway in downtown Los Angeles and Pacific Boulevard in Huntington Park were suddenly devoid of customers. Stores and restaurants saw a deep slump in sales and had to lay off workers. Medical clinics reported a sharp increase in cancellations. Schools and community colleges saw a drop in attendance.

But for most, the walkout had little or no impact, minimizing political pressure to end it. Riordan spent the first few days of the strike on a bicycle vacation in the south of France.

On Monday, MTA management and leaders of the United Transportation Union representing 4,400 striking drivers and rail operators initially seemed to move farther apart, as elected officials threw barbs at one another at the Los Angeles hearing and the Pasadena hotel where talks have been held.

The exchanges between the state lawmakers and MTA officials centered on the issue of money. The question was whether the MTA was prolonging the strike because it is saving money by keeping its buses and trains idle and its drivers on the picket lines, where they don’t draw pay, pension or health benefits.

From the beginning, the MTA has said it is willing to give its drivers a wage increase of about 3% a year over the next three years, while protecting their pensions and liberal fringe benefits.

In return, the MTA has said it wants about $23 million in long-term savings over the three-year life of the contract by significantly cutting overtime payments and eliminating what executives called “antiquated work rules.”

Legislative critics on the Democrat-dominated Senate-Assembly legislative committee took direct aim at the proposed $23 million in savings, calling witnesses who pointed out that the agency already is very close to its savings target.

The millions in savings were explained to the committee by consultant Thomas A. Rubin, a former treasurer of the Southern California Rapid Transit District, MTA’s predecessor, and one of the MTA’s first financial officers.

Rubin, now a consultant for the United Transportation Union, alleged that the MTA is saving $20 million to $25 million a month on fuel, pay and other expenses.

The transit agency’s chief operating officer, Allan Lipsky, and Terry Matsumoto, an MTA financial officer, agreed in general with Rubin’s analysis but said it did not go far enough in accounting for extraordinary expenses.

Matsumoto said Rubin was ignoring $10 million to $11 million in added costs caused by the strike. The MTA, the two executives said, was losing fare revenues, paying extra security costs, financing a special bus line along Red Line subway routes, and reimbursing municipal bus lines for accepting MTA passes on their buses.

When those costs are subtracted, the net savings shrink to $10 million to $15 million.

Hours after the hearing, the MTA sent a more detailed breakdown of its costs to the lawmakers.

The revised accounting showed the agency could experience a $22.5-million loss if it does not receive local sales tax receipts and state and federal assistance because of the strike. Matsumoto, however, acknowledged late Monday that the MTA is continuing to receive its share of the sales tax and other state subsidies even though it is not providing any service.

Moreover, the agency’s projected loss assumes that the state will penalize it for loss of ridership during the strike--which is unlikely.

As for the roughly $2.5 million in public relations and other costs associated with the strike, Lipsky said: “I believe we have spent an outrageous amount of money on this strike.”

In breaking down the costs for lawmakers, Lipsky said the MTA will pay up to $450,000 to Tom Webb, an independent transit consultant from Scottsdale, Ariz.; $250,000 to a second consultant, and $130,000 to Brenda Diederichs, chief labor relations officer.

Lipsky also said the MTA has been paying $50,000 to $60,000 a month to the Pasadena Hilton, where it has established its negotiating headquarters, for a total of $232,000.

An additional $482,000 has been spent on print and radio ads, on top of $570,000 paid to outside public relations firms.

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Times staff writer Douglas P. Shuit contributed to this story.