Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 31, 1990 TAG: 9003310230
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: DALLAS LENGTH: Medium
"We cannot resume negotiations while the violence continues. Accordingly we will not be in Tucson next Monday for bargaining," said Executive Vice President P. Anthony Lannie.
In a letter to union President Edward Strait, Lannie said the company would agree to meet on April 9 "if there is no other violence in the meantime." Lannie is the company's chief negotiator.
On Friday, however, the company reported three additional shootings and a bomb threat at a Greyhound terminal in Chicago.
Federal mediators announced the day before that talks would resume in Tucson, Ariz., on Monday morning.
Greyhound broke off earlier negotiations March 18 as violence continued and after a vice president of the Amalgamated Council of Greyhound Local Unions was arrested in connection with an attack on a bus driver.
Jim Power, spokesman for the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service in Washington, said director Bernard E. DeLury learned of Greyhound's decision while he was being sworn in Friday and had no immediate comment.
The union repeatedly has condemned the violence, said spokesman Jeff Nelson, who accused the company of using the violence as a pretense for refusing to negotiate.
"To use this issue as a reason not to negotiate would be similar to us using Robert Waterhouse's death to not negotiate. It is a smoke screen," Nelson said.
Waterhouse, a striking driver, was killed on March 3 in Redding, Calif., when he was crushed as a bus driven by a replacement driver was backing up. No charges were filed.
The agreement to resume negotiations had come after three days of secret meetings between the company, the union and federal mediators in Washington this week, according to sources close to the negotiations.
The meetings were kept secret at DeLury's request, said one source. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity.
The latest shooting occurred Friday in Pennsylvania when a bus was hit by gunfire somewhere between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, said George Gravley, a Greyhound spokesman in Dallas.
Neither the driver nor the 18 passengers were injured, and nobody heard the gunshot. When the driver arrived in Harrisburg about 7:20 p.m., he noticed a bullet hole in the side of the bus, Gravley said.
Friday morning, a bus was fired on just east of Tulsa, Okla., said company spokesman Steve Scarpino. No one was injured.
On Thursday, a baggage handler in Kansas City, Mo., discovered three bullet holes in a bus that had traveled from Minneapolis, Gravley said. There were no injuries, Gravley said, but one bullet hole was just below a window.
Greyhound says there have been 27 shootings and 70 bomb threats against buses or installations. No bombs have been found. There have been more than 100 other acts of violence.
by CNB