Orange County buses will run on Monday despite maintenance worker strike.
On June 5, hundreds of Los Angeles County Bus Lines maintenance workers went on strike to demand a raise. Over one-and-a-half hours, bus drivers, including many of their families, showed up for work to avoid the strike. With overtime pay, they could afford to miss at least two days per week. In a meeting with transit officials, they said they were ready to work without a strike.
Bus drivers, however, do not have a union.
On June 12, LACBC president Scott Knauer told the Los Angeles Daily News that the union will not call a strike, because the county did not inform them of it.
So, this means the strike will end soon, or will be called up again next month.
Will there be another strike this year?
Maybe, maybe not.
After the strike ends, bus drivers have to start paying union dues. LACBC has threatened to send bus drivers to the picket lines, and the union cannot refuse.
So, if all goes well, bus drivers will be unionized next year, and that will mean another strike.
Will the strike be called up again? We will know more after the strike ends, and we will see if the union can get bus drivers to go on strike in a similar situation. (We can also see if the union can negotiate a contract that is better for bus drivers.)
Will Unionization mean more money for bus drivers? Maybe, maybe not.
The County of Los Angeles, which runs the bus system, can withhold bus drivers’ and other employees’ pay if they are on strike for more than four hours.
However, LACBC can impose a “cooling-off” period, called a “cooling-off period,” which is up to six days. So, bus drivers can return to work, but they can not receive pay for the days they were on strike.
What does this mean for bus drivers?
For bus drivers, the end of a strike is not good news. Bus drivers do not get paid overtime, and they cannot earn overtime pay until they become unionized.
During a strike, if the number of drivers on strike reaches 70 percent of the total number
