Workers at a private bus company that serves 8,000 riders a day in southern and eastern Brooklyn staged a sickout yesterday to protest their lack of a contract, complicating commuting just days before the Christmas holiday and catching city officials off guard.þþThe job action, by 200 drivers, mechanics and other workers at the Command Bus Company of East New York, which receives city subsidies to operate six express and two local routes, affected only a tiny fraction of the transit system's daily passenger load of seven million.þþNevertheless, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg signed an order proclaiming a state of emergency and authorizing commuter vans licensed by the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission to pick up passengers along the affected routes. þþAides to the mayor said he took the action for several reasons, including the cold weather and holiday traffic congestion.þþOn Sunday and Monday, members of Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, who work at Command Bus, and Local 1179, who work at Green Bus Lines of Jamaica, Queens, voted to authorize a strike. þþBut city officials said on Monday that they believed that no job action would occur pending the outcome of a meeting yesterday between union officials and the city's commissioner of labor relations over a plan to take over Command, Green and five other private bus lines. Both sides continued to meet last night. Local 1179 officials said yesterday that they had decided not to strike at this time, preferring to see how talks developed. þþIn Brooklyn neighborhoods including Canarsie, Starrett City, Gerritsen Beach and Mill Basin, riders faced long lines and confusion. þþÿThe bus didn't show and everybody was waiting and didn't know what to do,ÿ said Geronimo Rodriguez, 21, who began his trip at Ocean Avenue and Avenue J. ÿThere were many students, maybe 100 people altogether.ÿ þþMr. Rodriguez normally takes the B100, a popular line that travels east from Midwood to Mill Basin, where he works at the Little Israel grocery store.þþYesterday, he had to walk 20 minutes to his job from the nearest stop on the B2 line. The delays, he said, doubled his normal travel time of one hour. þþMany commuters said that at first they thought the delays were caused by service changes. þþÿI was waiting for a half-hour, then 40 minutes, and nothing happened,ÿ said Luis Gines, 21, of Brighton Beach. Mr. Gines, who normally takes the B100, said he paid a car service $12 to get to his job as a kitchen manager at Not Just Chicken, a restaurant in Mill Basin.þþIn 2002, the city and state announced that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority would take over seven private bus lines. The bus lines receive public subsidies of $200 million a year, and the city says that a public takeover would make bus service more efficient. Most of the bus workers would become employees of the authority, a state entity. þþHowever, negotiations have repeatedly foundered over pension liabilities, the fate of nonunion workers and the sale price of the companies' bus depots and intangible assets like good will. The last contract for Command Bus workers expired in December 2002, and officials of Local 1181 have complained that their members have gone without raises while the talks drag on. The president of the local, Salvatore Battaglia, did not respond to a telephone message yesterday. þþThe chairman of Command Bus, Jerome Cooper, said in a telephone interview that he was disappointed by the sickout but not surprised. ÿI'm sorry it came to this,ÿ said Mr. Cooper, who is also the chairman of Green and two other private bus companies. ÿThe only people that suffer are the people waiting on the street corners for buses.ÿ þþ
Source: NY Times
