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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 7, 1990                   TAG: 9003071569
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: From staff reports
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

REGIONAL RED CROSS REPORTS NO SHORTAGES

Although there have been no reports of shipment problems causing blood shortages, a Red Cross Appalachian Region spokesman said service to the area's 35 hospitals and five dialysis centers is being disrupted by the Greyhound strike.

"We rely heavily on Greyhound and were receiving three to five shipments of blood per day before the strike," said Steve Warren. "The night of the strike, we had a special blood shipment scheduled to one of our hospitals in Southwest Virginia, but Greyhound workers called us and told us we could not be sure of the schedule that night."

Warren said the local Red Cross has not used Greyhound to ship blood during the strike, but is using volunteer shuttle drivers and commercial couriers.

Danny Laprad, assistant district manager for Greyhound, said most of the buses traveling through Roanoke during the strike are about half full of passengers.

While the five daily Greyhound runs through Roanoke were quiet Tuesday, the hard feelings between picketers and working drivers were evident.

Dave Wadey, who crossed the picket line to drive, said the Amalgamated Transit Union encourages violence and property damage by not condemning it.

Wadey said Monday night that his life had been threatened "at least 40 times in the past three days."

Tommy Mullins of Roanoke, a union vice president, said the ATU "certainly doesn't condone violence." He said he has seen shouting and name-calling but no violence on the picket line.

Joe Wilson of Hardy, a member of the ATU council, said the union does not condone violence.

Wilson described the drivers as law-abiding citizens up against "a big corporation pushing people to the brink by trying to hire other people to take your job while you're paid slave wages."

Union drivers have been hurt by replacement drivers "who run through picket lines like [race car driver] A.J. Foyt," he said.

Wilson was one of two picketers who said Wadey's bus bumped them Monday night. Wilson was taken to a hospital, where X-rays were negative.

Wilson said that if Greyhound owner Fred Curry would offer the drivers half of the money he's set aside to pay for the strike, "they would take it and run."

The drivers on the picket lines "are not the devils some of the press and Fred Curry make us out to be," Wilson said.

by CNB