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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 16, 1990                   TAG: 9005160163
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

GREYHOUND SET BACK BY DECISION

The National Labor Relations Board's decision to file a complaint classifying the 11-week Greyhound bus strike as an "unfair labor practices" dispute, rather than simply a strike over wages, is a crucial strategic victory for the company's 9,000 strikers.

However, it remained unclear Tuesday whether the labor board's decision - announced in Washington Monday by the agency's general counsel - will hasten the settlement of the stalemated strike. Greyhound officials said they will appeal the NLRB complaint before an administrative law judge and in the federal courts, if necessary.

The NLRB decision clearly undermines Greyhound's primary tactic of permanently replacing strikers with strikebreakers.

Federal labor law gives special protection to workers who are found to have struck in protest of employer negotiating practices, as opposed to wages and benefits. The law guarantees these workers can return to their jobs when the strike ends.

The NLRB decision also creates a new financial risk for Greyhound, which recently reported losses of $56 million in the first quarter of 1990 and may have to file for protection from creditors under federal bankruptcy law if it cannot renegotiate its loan payment schedule.

"I'm really elated," said Edward M. Strait, president of the Amalgamated Council of Greyhound Locals, which represent the striking drivers and office and maintenance workers.

"We weren't exactly ecstatic," Greyhound spokesman George Graveley said.

The union is likely to offer to return to work next week under the terms of its old contract while bargaining continues, Strait said. Federal labor law says that when workers in an unfair-labor-practices case offer to return to work, the employer must give them back their jobs.

Greyhound, which has hired 2,700 replacement drivers and eliminated 2,000 other driving jobs, has in past weeks contended that only a few hundred positions remain for strikers who want to come back.

If the NLRB complaint were upheld, Greyhound would be liable to pay back wages to strikers from the time that they first offered to return to work. That could cost Greyhound more than $10 million a month.

by CNB