Labor council backs bus drivers

Thursday, June 13, 2002 | 10:57 a.m.

The Southern Nevada Labor Council voted unanimously Wednesday night to ask the Nevada AFL-CIO to oppose a proposed $2.7 billion tax package that would support road and transit improvements in Clark County.

The council, which represents more than 120,000 workers in Southern Nevada, passed the resolution in an effort to support bus drivers on strike against the company managing the countywide Citizens Area Transit service. The labor council will take the issue to the statewide AFL-CIO political convention next week.

The resolution is a blow to efforts by Regional Transportation Commission officials to pass the package of tax increases, including $2 billion over the next two decades by increasing the county's sales tax rate from 7.25 percent to 7.5 percent.

The RTC is the agency with ultimate oversight over the bus system. The RTC contracts out the daily system management to ATC, a unit of a multinational transportation company.

The Clark County Commission is scheduled to vote next week on placing the issue on the November ballot. The tax package would also have to pass the Legislature next spring.

Clark County Commission Chairman Dario Herrera, still undecided on the tax package issue, said Thursday that the labor council's resolution does not encourage him to support the ballot question.

"I'm obviously concerned about the way drivers are treated by this multinational corporation," he said. "I think they have every right to be concerned about how the proceeds from this tax question will be used in respect to mass transit."

RTC General Manager Jacob Snow said Thursday that the union's opposition would not only hurt transportation in Southern Nevada, but the transit system specifically -- and by extension, the system's drivers.

RTC officials have consistently said throughout the strike, now in its fourth week, that it cannot legally support either the union or the management company. Agency officials have asked -- so far without success -- that both sides return to negotiations.

But the union says that those officials "have to take further steps."

Frank Opdyke, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1637 president, said his union is battling for its life against ATC, the company managing the bus system.

"ATC is trying to bust our union," Opdyke said. "This isn't something we wanted to do but this is a tack we have to take."

Opdyke said the tax package will not pass without labor's support. Regional transportation officials have said the package is critically important to avoiding total gridlock on the Las Vegas Valley's surface streets by 2010.

But Opdyke said the union will not support growth and improvement of a system that would not also benefit the drivers.

Transportation officials "need to support the union and get ATC off its high horse," he said.

Bruce Woodbury, transportation commission chairman and Clark County Commissioner, said Wednesday night's resolution opposing the tax package is not a surprise but still unfortunate.

The ultimate effect of opposing the tax package will hurt not just the drivers' union, but other unions and workers throughout Southern Nevada, he said, because bus-system jobs will be lost, new road construction would be stalled and the transportation infrastructure of the region will fail.

"If ever there would be a self-defeating situation, it would be for the unions to prevent this from going on the ballot," Woodbury said. "There would never be any more jobs, enhancements for the workers, expansion of the bus system."

Woodbury said he believes the unions will support the tax package if the strike is resolved, which he and other RTC officials hope will happen soon.

The Nevada AFL-CIO political action committee will meet next week in Carson City. Opdyke said the drivers' union will ask for statewide support and funding to oppose the ballot question.

Nevada AFL-CIO Executive Director Danny Thompson, among those who had originally supported the RTC's tax package, said the labor council cannot support the measure if it does not benefit drivers.

"The wages that these guys make here are horrible," Thompson said. "We know that it is critical to have mass transportation in Southern Nevada, but if it is done at the expense of workers who don't have a livable wage, you're just solving one problem by creating another."

The acrimonious strike has delayed or canceled bus service throughout the Las Vegas Valley, cutting daily ridership in half to about 75,000. The union's 600 drivers are holding out for better pay, benefits and working conditions.

ATC is hiring and training permanent replacement workers to join replacements imported from its other operations nationwide.

The union has pressured local political leaders and the Regional Transportation Commission to support its effort. But commission officials say they cannot, but federal labor law and the terms of their contract with the managing company, support either side.

RTC spokeswoman Ingrid Reisman, however, said the agency's hands are tied.

"Under the rules of the National Labor Relations Act, we cannot do anything that would put any pressure on either side," she said.

But Opdyke said one step the agency could take would be to assess fines on the company for late and missing buses. RTC officials have privately estimated that the eventual fines, as specified in the contract with the company, could total in the millions.

But the RTC has said since shortly after the strike started that it cannot levy those damages until the strike is settled.

"That might be construed as putting economic pressure on the company," Reisman said. "We cannot do that."