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Oregon daily
emerald
Friday, November 4, 1983
Eugene, Oregon
Volume 85, Number 45
Employee strike leashes Greyhound
By Michele Matassa
Of the Emerald
Greyhound buses are not racing out of their
blocks this week due to a nationwide strike by about
12,700 company employees.
Bus drivers and station workers abandoned their
buses and terminals to walk the picket lines beginn
ing at midnight on Wednesday, leaving company ter
minals full of empty buses and allowing Trailways
Bus System to shift into high gear to accommodate
stranded Greyhound customers.
The strike has 'doubled and tripled our
business,” Trailways ticket agent Dave Coker said.
"We're doubling our buses out of here going
east to Bend, all the way to Salt Lake City, to Denver
and back East. We're doubling out of Portland and
out of Los Angeles. They've been putting two buses
on each schedule," Coker said.
He said Trailways has been preparing about a
week for the strike, which was ignited by a contract
disagreement between the Greyhound company and
the Almalgamated Transit Union.
No talks were scheduled after negotiations broke
off Monday night, a few hours before expiration of a
three-year contract.
Greyhound will remain shut for two weeks and
will "invite the employees to return to their jobs,"
said spokeswoman Dorothy Lorant from
Greyhound's corporate headquarters in Phoenix,
Ariz. She said copies of Greyhound's final offer — in
cluding wage cuts — were mailed to members of the
striking Amalgamated Transit Workers.
The company seeks 9.5 percent salary cuts for
drivers and terminal, maintenance and office
workers, saying the cuts are necessary for the bus
division to remain competitive. It also wants workers
to contribute 5 percent of pension costs and accept
fringe benefit cuts.
But Ed Perkins, secretary/treasurer for the
Portland ATU branch, said that the company contract
offer would cut employee wages 20 percent to
25 percent. The Portland ATU branch represents
Greyhound employees in six Western states.
"They want $80 million out of our pockets the
first year of the contract. They showed a clear net
profit last year of a little over $20 million," Perkins
said.
"It's just pure and simple. They want whatever
they can grab. We don't plan on giving it to them,"
he said.
Perkins said 98.3 percent of union members re
jected the company's offer because "no one could af
ford to work under the package."
"They have no justification economically. They're
simply looking to increase the shareholder's profit,
not through improved business techniques or im
proved efficiency but through taking it out of our
hide," Perkins said.
Greyhound Corp. Chairman John Teets
disagreed with Perkins.
"Greyhound's higher labor costs prohibit us
from effectively competing against discount airlines
and other bus companies," said Teets.
Under the current contract, the union's 7,500 bus
drivers earn an average of $27,437 a year in wages and
$8,307 in benefits; terminal workers $20,429 in wages
and $6,185 in benefits; maintenance workers $21,576
in wages and $6,534 in benefits; and office workers
$16,947 in wages and $5,312 in benefits.
Perkins said he doesn't see a quick solution to
the disagreement.
"In my personal opinion, it (the strike) will last
until Mr. Nageotte and Mr. Teets are thrown out on
their ear," he said. Nageotte works for the corpora
tion headquarters in Phoenix.
Perkins said he's confident union members will
stick wifh the strike because they are' mostly ex
perienced and senior people" who have been
through strikes before, some lasting 80 days.
And the strike could go on that long if the com
pany continues refusing to negotiate, Perkins said.
Continued on Page 3A
Photo by Brian Erb
Striking Greyhound workers picketed the front of the bus line's
terminal Thursday afternoon over a contract dispute.
Oregon needs healthy attitude
Ex-governor says sales tax will attract business
By Doug Nash
Of the Emerald
A healthy attitude is the key to a healthy
Oregon business climate, former Gov. Bob Straub
told a class of business students Thursday.
Speaking to graduate-level business analysis
and forcasting students, Straub was emphatic in
both praise and criticism of state land-use and
economic planning.
On the side of praise, his message was short
and sweet.
"I know that Oregon is the greatest state in
the nation, and I'm not running for anything,"
said Straub, Oregon governor from 1975 to 1979
and now an industrial consultant in Salem.
He pointed to the state's air and water pollu
tion legislation, the bottle bill and state land-use
planning as examples of Oregon's progressive
leadership in environmental awareness.
But that awareness has turned into a "phobia"
that is constricting Oregon's economic develop
ment, he said.
"We've got barriers that are causing
businesses to skirt around Oregon," Straub said.
An attitude that is unwilling to recognize "the
fundamental changes that have taken place in the
timber industry since 1979" heads the list of those
barriers, he said. 1979 marked the depletion of the
state's old-growth Douglas Fir resources, which
Straub called "the finest timber in the world."
Since then, Straub said, the state has had to rely
on second-growth timber that does not have the
same competetive edge the old-growth had.
As an example of the decline, Straub noted
that in 1960, 50 percent of jobs in the state were in
forest products. By 1980, the proportion had fallen
to 30 percent, he said.
"In 20 years, it declined almost by half and in
my opinion it's going to continue to decline," he
said. "We've got to have new industry. People
don't realize that we're going to have to roll up
our sleeves and work."
To entice new industry, Straub said the state
Bob Straub
should implement a sales tax, an idea he said he
previously opposed.
"The sales tax would be a sign that Oregon
really is trying to do something in the state that
makes it more attractive to industry."
In addition, Straub said state and local
regulatory procedures must be streamlined if the
state's fight for new industry is to be successful.
"Here, I would judge it's two years before you
get a commitment of any kind," he said. "A
business is not going to wait two years if they
need to build a plant. They've gotta go."
Straub, who said he enjoys private life
because "I can speak the way I feel," said delays
and waste are just as prevalent in industry as it is
in government.
"Have you ever walked into the second floor
of a bank, where all the vice-presidents are? What
a joke. I mean they're all sitting around reading
newspapers. They aren't doing anything."
Faculty organization
opposes intervention
By Melissa Martin
Of (he fmerjld
If some University faculty
members had their way, Pres.
Ronald Reagan would keep the
U.S. military out of Central
America.
About 12 faculty members
showed up at the Collier House
last Friday to create Faculty
Against Intervention in Central
America, says Colette Craig,
University linguistics professor.
More than 260 faculty signed a
petition supporting the group.
“It was very clear what we came
together for," says George Ayora,
romance languages professor.
“We all shared the concern about
the actions of the United States
towards Central America and
what seems to be a policy of
military and political
intervention."
The organization's purpose is to
show that the American people
are not behind Reagan, says
psychology Prof. Barbara Pope.
She calls U.S. intervention in Cen
tral America Reagan's "excuse to
show his muscle."
"Reagan has been wanting to
get his hands dirty for a long time
in Latin America and Central
America,” she says.
The group's first concrete pro
ject is a panel discussion Monday
with community and faculty
representatives who recently
toured Latin America.
Craig says the faculty group is a
network, not a structured
organization, which would re
quire definite meeting times and
elected officials. Instead, the
group will operate on two levels,
with one group contributing time
and another group providing sup
port through money and peti
tions, Craig says.
David Curland, romance
languages professor and one of
the founders of the group, says
University faculty members are a
valuable resource in understan
ding Latin American affairs.
"We want to make sure people
are informed on issues in the
broadest sense and not simply
limited to what the administration
in Washington may be saying
about any given situation,”
Curland says.
The group wants to com
municate its ideas to the Universi
ty and Eugene communities,
Ayora says. He calls it a "civic
duty."
Prof. Peter Jusczyk is collecting
money from psychology faculty
members for the upcoming
ASUO-sponsored conference on
U.S. intervention in Latin America.
Response has been good, he says.
But Jusczyk is doing more than
raising money for the group. By
monitoring BBC and CBC news
reports about the developments
in Grenada, he is developing a
"definitely different perspective"
on the U.S.-Cuba stand-off.
He joined the group because his
views agreed with those of other
faculty members.
"I viewed the invasion as both
moral and illegal. And above that,
it's clearly not in the U.S. in
terest," Jusczyk says.