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The clock struck midnight Sept. 16 without a late-breaking agreement, prompting a Los Angeles transit strike at 12:01 a.m. (PDT) that paralyzed bus and rail commuters over the weekend and forced workers to find alternate Monday morning transportation.

Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and United Transportation Union (UTU) broke off negotiation talks Sept. 16 two hours before the midnight deadline.

MTA officials called on UTU to end the strike immediately and resume negotiations Sept. 18 at 10 a.m. (PDT). "Come and join us, we’ll be back at the table then," says Edward Scannell, MTA spokesman. "We’ve requested the state conciliator to ask the union to come back to the negotiating table."

In a Sept. 17 prepared statement, Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, MTA board chairman, said that by refusing to negotiate and rejecting numerous MTA contract proposals, the union is thumbing its nose at the transit agency and taxpayers, and is preventing MTA from finding any possible solution to the crisis.

Union officials claim they only will return to the Pasadena, Calif., bargaining table if summoned by a state mediator.

"A mediator’s job is to bring parties together, but MTA feels it’s more important now to revel in political posturing than to deal with a state conciliator," says Goldy Norton, UTU spokesman.

MTA began negotiations in April with unions: UTU, representing 4,300 bus and rail operators; Transportation Communications International Union (TCU), representing 650 clerical workers; and Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), representing 1,860 transit mechanics.

After union contracts expired June 30, Gov. Gray Davis imposed a 60-day cooling off period, which expired Sept. 4.

MTA agreed to drop the 4/10 issue Sept. 15 — a negotiations sticking point — but UTU declined the offer, effectively setting the strike in motion.

Under the old contract featuring 4/10, bus drivers would work eight hours split over a 10-hour span, five days a week. About 15 percent of the drivers would work a full 10 hours, including two hours at overtime pay. MTA officials had offered to change UTU’s contract and have drivers work four days a week, with 10-hour shifts split over a 12-hour span.

With talks at an impasse, neither side could predict when negotiations would resume, although the state mediator may require that MTA and UTU officials be present early this week (beginning Sept. 18) to resume talks.

Due to uncertainty on both sides, a prediction on the duration of the strike also was impossible to make.

"It’s far too early to call, with emotions riding high on both sides," says Norton.

Adds Scannell: "Our last strike in 1994 lasted nine days and we had a 68-day strike in 1974, so there’s no way to know how long this strike will last."

— Jeff Stagl