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

DATE: SATURDAY, March 3, 1990                   TAG: 9003032731
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

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

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.

At Greyhound's Roanoke terminal, pickets are scheduled from 4 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, said Joe Wilson, a member of the ATU Council. "We'll cover whatever [buses] they send out," he said.

Using replacement drivers hired by Manpower Inc., the company scheduled three buses out of Roanoke Friday.

None of the more than 50 union drivers based in Roanoke worked on Friday, Wilson said.

Bob Harman, Greyhound district manager, said two buses are expected to go to Washington and to Knoxville today and one is to go to Norfolk on a limited strike schedule. Normally, six round-trip runs operate daily from Washington through Roanoke to Knoxville and two go to Norfolk.

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.