Unshaven and disheveled, David Barefield has been riding the bus since Wednesday and now he's stuck in Salt Lake and getting upset.
"I planned on being in Seattle today, but I won't be there for another 24 hours," he growled, after an all-night bus trip from Denver to Salt Lake City, via Cheyenne, and after waiting around in the Salt Lake terminal since 2 a.m.Barefield is among more than 100 travelers stranded overnight in the Salt Lake Greyhound terminal as a result of a companywide midnight walkout by union bus drivers.
More than 9,000 union employees of Greyhound Lines went on strike Friday after a day of marathon negotiations in Scottsdale, Ariz., failed to produce a new contract with the nation's largest inter-city bus line.
Picket lines went up at 12:05 a.m. MST outside Greyhound terminals nationwide. Drivers were told to park their buses at the nearest terminal.
Local drivers said support for the walkout has been unanimous among the 105 drivers based in Utah, who were picketing the terminal entrances early Friday.
"We haven't gotten word of any weak ones or wimps," said Nicholas Moore, spokesman for Local 1384 of the Amalgamated Transit Union in Portland, which represents drivers in Utah.
But Greyhound has been advertising and training replacements for the past two weeks in anticipation of a strike, and drivers are being drafted from other carriers. Tom Miceli, area general manager, said early Friday that replacements are being transported to Salt Lake City to resume service that was canceled most of the night.
A ticket agent said the company was operating nine runs out of Salt Lake City Friday, compared with 22 Thursday. The routes serve New York, San Francisco, Albuquerque-Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Portland and Butte.
He said passengers who wish refunds can contact the ticket office to get their money back.
"It's getting tense in here," said Jody Chatterly, at the Salt Lake terminal, who was scheduled to pick up her children in Cedar City at 2:30 p.m. today but is told she won't be leaving until 10:15 tonight.
"One guy lost his cool and popped another guy in the head," said another traveler, among more than 100 who have been sleeping on the floor and in chairs at the terminal at 160 W. South Temple.
Security guards were posted at the depot most of the night and city police were called in to monitor the situation.
In addition to the drivers, the contract that expired at midnight Thursday covered 1,475 maintenance workers and 1,660 office workers in telephone information centers in Omaha, Neb., and Charlotte, N.C., and the accounting center in West Des Moines, Iowa.
P. Anthony Lannie, Greyhound executive vice president and head of the company's negotiating team, said, "We offered a package worth $14.1 million, or 6.9 percent, in the first year. That is an excellent offer from a company that lost almost $20 million over the last three years and is far above the average of company-union negotiated settlements of the last two years."
Greyhound said its package was worth $63 million over three years.
"That is all this company can afford," Lannie said, "and the union did not dispute the company's inability to increase its offer. Instead, they wanted us to increase fares for our passengers by 10 percent and we refused to do that.'
The union's last reported counterproposal, made Thursday, would have cost the company $20 million in the first year and provided wage and benefit increases averaging between 4 percent and 5 percent.
But, Moore said, wages are just a small part of the dispute. He explained that the company has also proposed subcontracting 70 percent of its routes to competing bus lines. "If you give away the work, what use is the money?" he said.
Greyhound officials in Dallas refused to discuss the subcontracting proposal with the Deseret News.
The Salt Lake ticket agent, who preferred not to give his name, confirmed that the drivers he's talked to are more concerned about the subcontracting than the wage issues. Greyhound ticketing has been handled by subcontractors since 1983, and the company wants to do the same with much of the driving, he said. He expects Greyhound Chairman Fred Currey to succeed in busting the drivers' union. "I think he can hold out longer than they can."