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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 20, 1990                   TAG: 9006200191
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

2 GREYHOUND PICKETERS' CASES IN ABEYANCE

A judge ruled Tuesday that two picketers intimidated a Greyhound bus driver with death threats last month, but noted that the incident is apparently the only flaw in an otherwise peaceful strike at the Roanoke bus terminal.

Roanoke Circuit Judge Roy Willett commended members of the local chapter of the Amalgamated Transit Union for their compliance with an April 5 injunction that limited the number of strikers to eight and placed other restrictions on picketing.

Since then, only three striking bus drivers have been accused of violating the injunction in Roanoke as the strike against Greyhound enters a fourth month.

The allegations stemmed from a May 10 encounter in which Greyhound driver David Wadey said three strikers followed him to a parking lot near the Salem Avenue terminal and peppered him with obscenities and death threats as he tried to walk home late at night.

Wadey testified that the strikers called him a "scab" and told him, "You're a dead man."

"Considering the kinds of violence that had taken place in other parts of the country, I felt quite threatened," Wadey testified.

Willett ruled there was enough evidence to show that two strikers - David and Rosemary Custer of Moneta - had violated a clause of the injunction that prohibits intimidating replacement drivers.

But Willett took the contempt-of-court cases under advisement, saying they will be dismissed in six months if there are no further problems, and dismissed a contempt charge against a third striker, Vaden Thompson of Lexington.

While conceding that the incident was not a serious infraction of the injunction, Greyhound attorney Bayard Harris called it a "lucky miss."

Harris said the parking lot incident suggests that strikers may not feel bound to follow the injunction away from the terminal. He asked that Willett treat the case seriously to "ensure that these three and their brethren do not misapprehend this court's order and go beyond what they did on May 10."

David Custer testified that he and his wife saw Wadey at the parking lot, not far from the terminal, on their way home from a day of picketing.

Custer denied that he made threats or used foul language, although he admitted using the word "scab" and a few others that sounded a little worse.

"Yeah, we used some adjectives, certainly," he testified.

While finding "by their own testimony" that the Custers violated the injunction, Willett said he is pleased that there have been no other serious problems at the terminal since he issued the injunction.

by CNB