Bus drivers, union to resume talks

Friday, June 14, 2002 | 10:14 a.m.

The union representing bus drivers and the company managing the bus system met Thursday night, but neither side reported any breakthroughs to resolve the 26-day-old strike.

Both sides said they will go back to the bargaining table today.

A handful of routes still are not running and the Regional Transportation Commission, the public agency with overall responsibility for the system, reports that delays throughout the 51-route system are still occurring.

Frank Opdyke, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1637 president, said requests from RTC staff and elected officials have helped restart negotiations that ground to a halt more than two weeks ago. But about eight hours of talks Thursday night failed to bridge the impasse over wages, benefits and working conditions.

"The dynamics are still the same," Opdyke said. Representatives for ATC, the company with the contract to manage the system, "say they just can't do anything."

But for regional transportation officials, the fact that the two sides are meeting at all is positive.

"I don't think they are too far apart at this point," said Jacob Snow, RTC general manager. "At this point I think it's more of a personality than anything else. If they can get beyond that, I think both sides need to swallow a little pride."

The RTC, which has seen its daily bus ridership cut in half to 75,000, has pushed hard for resumption of the stalled negotiations. Snow and RTC board members met with company representatives Thursday afternoon and pushed for the talks.

The union, which has three of its international administrators in Las Vegas for the talks, provided a new proposal on paper for the company Wednesday night.

That is what the company needed before resuming talks, ATC spokeswoman Val Michael said.

She said those looking for a resolution to the strike have cause for optimism.

"I think there's a lot more optimism just because we're back at the table," Michael said. "We wouldn't be at the table if we didn't think it was serious, if we didn't think we could find some resolution."