
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 3, 1990                   TAG: 9003032918
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ACROSS U.S., GREYHOUND LEAVES MOST DRIVING TO US

A nationwide strike against Greyhound Lines Friday cut off bus service to nearly 5,000 communities, isolating many small towns and rural areas that rely on the company as their only means of intercity public transportation.

An estimated 6,300 drivers in the Amalgamated Transit Union walked off their jobs at 12:01 a.m. Friday in a dispute over wages. Greyhound estimated it was only able to service 20 percent of its routes with replacement drivers or employees who crossed picket lines.

The last Greyhound strike lasted 47 days in 1983. The ATU approved a new contract that reduced pay about 20 percent in 1986.

As the strike neared the end of its first day no new negotiations were scheduled. Greyhound, which showed its first profit last year after two years of losses totaling $20 million, has offered the drivers a 6.9 percent first-year wage increase, but claims the union wants a 33 percent increase. The union disputes the number, but has not given details of its own proposal.

Company drivers earn an average of $24,743 a year.

Local bus companies scrambled Friday to win emergency authority to operate on struck Greyhound routes. The Interstate Commerce Commission announced it would keep its offices open this weekend to process the applications.

Greyhound, the only nationwide bus company since it acquired Trailways two years ago, normally serves 9,500 of the 10,000 communities with intercity bus service. Approximately 4,900 of those towns are not serviced by any other carrier, according to Michele Trull, a spokeswoman for the American Bus Association.

In contrast, all the nation's airlines serve 477 communities and Amtrak serves 498. Unlike the railroads and airlines, the intercity bus is the transportation mode of choice for the poor and the elderly, according to a passenger profile prepared last year for the bus industry.

The impact of the strike appeared to vary from area to area, depending on whether the Greyhound routes also were served by regional companies. Trull said that in New England the disruption was minimal because most Greyhound routes are also served by regional bus lines.

Most of the information Friday about the strike's effect was anecdotal, with neither the company nor the union able to furnish precise numbers or accurate estimates of service.

Greyhound and the union, which in addition to the drivers represents 1,660 office workers and 1,475 maintenance workers, spent much of the day Friday exchanging charges over who was to blame for the strike.

by CNB