Union vows aid
for bus workers
An International Brotherhood of Teamsters official vowed yesterday to give financial and other support to 1,336 bus workers who have been on strike since Aug. 26.
Jim Santangelo, vice president of the Western region of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said the parent union would give the strikers up to $500 a week in addition to the current $200 a week in strike benefits.
Santangelo spoke yesterday at a news conference at the Kalihi headquarters of Local 996 of the Teamsters Union, saying he will stay on Oahu through the duration of the walkout to assist and support the strikers.
Other Teamsters officials, including national spokesman Don Owens and President Jimmy Hoffa, are also expected to come to Hawaii.
Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris said, "I think it's a terrible mistake for the Teamsters -- who have now brought in the big union bosses, Hoffa's big union bosses from the mainland -- that this whole style of negotiating through intimidation, trying to intimidate the mayor or the city or the public by holding them hostage for more salaries and more money on top of their already high salaries, is wrong."
The strike enters its 24th day today as the union and Oahu Transit Services, the private company that runs the bus for the city, cannot reach agreement on pay raises and pension contributions.
Talks between the Teamsters and Oahu Transit Services broke off Sept. 10. No new talks have been scheduled.
The union's last three-year contract proposal on the bargaining table included a wage freeze for the first year and 50 cents-per-hour wage and 50 cents-per-hour pension increases for each of the remaining two years. OTS's last offer included a 90-day cooling-off period, during which bus employees would return to work while negotiations continued. The union rejected the proposal.
Harris urged the union to return to the negotiating table with OTS.
"We have our community basically being victimized because the Teamsters' office decided they were going to take this community out on strike. It was a mistake, and it's time to end that mistake right now," Harris said yesterday during a news conference at Honolulu Hale.
OTS Senior Vice President John Roger Morton said the company is willing to go back to the negotiating table and looks forward to any new ideas that the union has to offer.
Union officials have arranged a 2 p.m. rally tomorrow at the state Capitol courtyard, where Santangelo is slated to speak. Other unions, including SHOPO, HSTA and ILWU, were invited to attend the rally. Afterward, union members are expected to walk to Honolulu Hale.
"We need to get the company to agree that we are not going to take a zero, zero, zero," said Mel Kahele, president of Teamsters Local 996.
He added the company has changed its reasons for the offer from budgetary problems to cost containment.
Santangelo, who arrived in Honolulu on Tuesday, visited striking workers yesterday to help boost morale.
Picketing at the Middle Street bus yard, Sybil Kam, a bus driver with Oahu Transit Services for the past 19 years, said the visit helped raise her spirits. Kam said she was discouraged after the union and management reached an impasse on contract proposals.
"It's just two rams butting heads going nowhere," said Kam.
