Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 5, 1990 TAG: 9004060917
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: By LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Robert Harmon testified that picketing bus drivers, who are on strike against the company, have often entered the terminal and gathered on Campbell Avenue in violation of an agreement that was reached last month to restrict picketing to the Salem Avenue side of the terminal.
Greyhound is seeking a preliminary injunction in Roanoke Circuit Court that would prohibit "wrongful and illegal acts" by the striking bus drivers.
Bayard Harris, a Roanoke lawyer who is representing Greyhound, said today that escalating problems in which buses have been blocked by strikers led to the company seeking an injunction.
Harris cited concerns about a planned rally Saturday night that he said could attract a crowd of more than 200.
Joe Wilson, an executive board member of the local union, said Wednesday the union will fight the suit.
"We've got a constitutional right to call a scab a scab," Wilson said. "And we don't have to use parlor language to do it. They want us sitting over there like little choir boys."
Wilson denied allegations that strikers have blocked traffic, although he said some union members have walked in front of buses in an attempt to "slow them down."
"I don't think we're doing anything unlawful," he said.
By seeking an injunction, Greyhound officials are not trying to keep union members from picketing. Instead, the company only wants to ensure that picket lines do not become violent and disruptive, Greyhound spokeswoman Teresa Clancy said.
Clancy, who works in the company's Dallas headquarters, said she was not familiar with details of the Roanoke suit. But she said the company had filed 19 similar suits in cities across the nation where strike-related violence has been the worst.
Most of the suits have resulted in injunctions that limit the number of pickets at a single location and place restrictions on their actions, Clancy said.
"It seems like as soon as we obtain an injunction, the violence has decreased," she said. Richmond is the only Virginia city in which an injunction has been obtained.
The lawsuit filed in Roanoke accuses the strikers of using "insulting and threatening language" toward replacement drivers.
Wilson admitted that the strikers use less-than-flattering language, but he denied the threats.
"We call them names, there's no doubt about that, and we use some very good adjectives to describe them, if you know what I mean," Wilson said.
by CNB