Binding Arbitration to Resolve Strikes

* Our city almost stood still for over one month, with the most crippling transit strike in our history creating an atmosphere of despair and hatred. People were not getting to work and were suffering economic hardship. There must be another method of resolving worker-management labor disputes. The U.S. Postal Service uses binding arbitration, which seems to work very well. If no agreement is reached after the contract expires, an arbitrator steps in and tries reaching a compromise contract between union and management. They can can take as long as necessary to reach a fair contract, acceptable to workers and management.

LEON GURVIN

Los Angeles

*

I have only one question about the MTA strike in Los Angeles: Exactly what does Jesse Jackson have to do with anything even closely related to the MTA strike? It was not about any civil rights violations, or any other rights of people being violated. It was simply a matter of workers wanting more and management not wanting to give more. As far as I am concerned, it is just another opportunity for him to do some grandstanding. Why doesn’t Jackson stick to what he supposedly is all about and let businesses settle their differences?

JOHN C. PETERSON

Highland

*

Jackson is a great peacemaker, a wizard. His dynamic presence might contribute to solving the Middle East’s problems. Why not send him to help in that crisis?

PETER YAMAGUCHI

Gardena

*

The MTA thinks that five days of free rides on buses and the subway will make up for a month of riders walking to and from work, paying money they didn’t have for cab rides? For losing their jobs? Canceling medical appointments? And what about those who bought September passes? They don’t get free rides; the MTA has their money. Big deal that September passes are good through October. That’s a given. So will the MTA give pass buyers five free days by lowering the price of November passes? Or will they cry poor yet again while pocketing that money?

DAMIANA CHAVEZ

Los Angeles

*

Your Oct. 18 front-page picture of laughing Supervisors Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and Zev Yaroslavsky, Jackson and Mayor Richard Riordan was almost obscene. The MTA saved $10 million to $15 million in labor costs during the strike, with clearly minimal concessions to the drivers. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know who won in the final negotiations.

Equally disingenuous is the MTA’s lip service to the potential loss of ridership due to the strike. Let’s get real. There’s only one game in town when it comes to transportation for the low-income bus riders in L.A.

KIP GILMAN

Malibu

*

Bus drivers union chief James Williams says, “This union has preserved middle-class jobs” (Oct. 18). What the union has preserved is its middle-class jobs--each at the expense of many riders’ lower- and middle-class jobs.

DON MANNING

Los Angeles

*

What professor James E. Moore II is really talking about in his thinly veiled treatise on contracting of MTA services (“New Routes to Making Los Angeles an MTA-Free Zone,” Opinion, Oct. 15) is farming out jobs (in today’s jargon, “outsourcing”). This is simply another name for non-unionism, with its attendant low wages sans benefits. The financial and humane gains that union members and civil servants have made in the last 70 years are being eroded in the type of obfuscation that the professor engages in.

To those, usually on a much higher salary plane, who arrogantly suggest the contracting or farming out of another’s job to the lowest bidder, I would like to suggest that their jobs be considered for farming out. I’m sure, with a little searching into some of the Third World nations, excellent professors could be found, for half the price, to replace some of ours.

MAYER GERSON

Northridge

*

Private transportation companies rarely bid out operation of their fleets for a simple reason: Drivers (and not planners) are the core of their business. They provide the necessary link to ensure quality customer service. Take United Parcel Service, for example. Their drivers are both unionized and well paid. Yet the company is highly successful for three simple reasons: Drivers are motivated through profit-sharing and other incentives; drivers bring their experience on career paths that lead into management; and drivers and management have a shared commitment to providing high-quality customer service.

Moore is correct in stating that the MTA should learn from the private sector. However, I believe that both labor and management can follow the example of successful companies in which labor and management work cooperatively toward the common goal of providing the best possible service at reasonable cost.

RANDOLPH W. HALL

Director, National Center

for Metropolitan Transportation

Research, La Canada