DEAL PUTS MTA BACK ON STREETS.

Byline: Troy Anderson and Orith Goldberg Staff Writers

Ending a historic 32-day transit strike, bus and rail operators voted Tuesday night to accept a new contract that gives them higher wages and benefits but also helps the financially teetering MTA save money and avoid bankruptcy.

Most of 6,700 bus drivers, train operators, mechanics and clerks are expected back at their jobs today after the third-longest transit strike in Los Angeles County history. Limited bus service is expected to resume this morning and expand throughout the day, while Metro Rail should resume by Thursday.

Calling the agreement a mutually beneficial package, MTA officials said it helps them save more than $23 million over the next three years and sets a precedent to help reduce the agency's 10-year, $438 million operating deficit.

``The settlement is a win-win for everybody,'' Mayor Richard Riordan said.

``This is a very solid deal for the MTA,'' MTA board member Zev Yaroslavsky said. ``We achieved the targeted goals of savings we set up for ourselves. We slightly exceeded $23 million.''

In the end, it took a Southern Baptist preacher to convince a Southern Baptist union leader to end the 32-day MTA strike. With a morning prayer after overnight negotiations, the Rev. Jesse Jackson urged Riordan to reach an agreement with union Chairman James Williams, a fellow Baptist, shortly before 7 a.m. Tuesday.

``We were down to overtime,'' Jackson said. ``We had just about given up after all night long, then we were awakened this morning by some angel that blessed us out of somewhere with a fresh start and a fresh idea and we shared it with the MTA leadership.''

The $23 million in savings includes money from work rule reforms, scheduled overtime reductions and increasing the number of part-time drivers from 650 to 980. The MTA had sought 1,125 part-time drivers.

The agreement also helps the MTA save on overtime costs by allowing the agency to increase the number of drivers who work four-day, 10-hour weeks from 45 to 100. The MTA wanted 400 drivers to work 10-hour split-shift schedules over a 12-hour period.

The contract also includes language allowing the creation of transit zones in the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys in accordance with provisions of the bill signed Sept. 30 by Gov. Gray Davis that requires any new zone be covered by MTA union contracts for four years.

``The option is kept in the agreement to open new transit zones,'' Riordan said. ``It's a little more difficult because of (the bill Davis signed), but it's still feasible.''

In return, United Transportation Union drivers will get wage increases, a 1 percent pension buyback and a $25 yearly increase in their uniform allowance, rising from $175 now to $250 by 2002.

``Above all, we have set this agency on a course of financial stability,'' Yaroslavsky said. ``This is an agency that has teetered on the brink for many years.

``It has overspent virtually every area of its budget from the subway system to salaries to the MTA headquarters building. The MTA has turned the corner on financial recklessness.''

More than 1,350 bus drivers showed up for the ratification vote Tuesday night at the Convention Center, with 92 percent of them voting to accept the agreement. Mike Secor, 48, of West Covina, a full-time bus driver with the MTA, was not enthusiastic as he read through a copy of the tentative agreement for union members before the ratification vote.

``It's better than nothing, but it's not as good as it could have been,'' said Secor, noting he was disappointed with the four-day, 10-hour assignments with no overtime.

Driver Angela Cameron, 42 of Culver City said the strike was a hardship and she was glad it was over. ``It was worth it but it was stress. Today, I got up and was going to look for part-time work.''

As an apology for the hardship the strike imposed on a half-million riders who rely on MTA service, the MTA will offer free bus and rail service today through Sunday.

``This is a matter of providing some measure of repayment to our riders who we know have been greatly inconvenienced,'' MTA board Chairwoman Yvonne Brathwaite Burke said.

MTA Chief Operating Officer Allan Lipsky said the MTA will pay for an advertising campaign to attract riders, who are often lost in transit strikes, back to the MTA.

Lipsky said the strike cost the MTA $22.5 million in lost fares; federal, state and local funds; and security costs. The negotiation cost the MTA $901,200 to pay a team of negotiators, $569,999 to hire a public relations firm, $482,025 for advertising, $295,217 for consulting and $232,221 to rent rooms at the Pasadena Hilton.

``We didn't pay salaries and operating costs during the strike, but we didn't get fares and operating revenues,'' Lipsky said. ``We will have a revised budget that we'll present by midyear that will fully account for the lost revenue and additional expenses we have incurred as a result of the strike.''

Lipsky said the MTA doesn't anticipate having to increase fares in the immediate future, but the board has been looking at ideas to restructure the fare system to increase revenues. Now, riders are given discounts for buying tokens; weekly, biweekly and monthly passes; and for being students, elderly or disabled.

Even as the UTU settled its contract, the Amalgamated Transit Union representing 1,800 mechanics and the 500-member Transportation Communications Union remain without contracts. They could potentially go on strike if they don't reach a settlement. Negotiations between the ATU and MTA resume Thursday; the TCU negotiations resume next week.

Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony said the MTA needs to convene a working group to look at ways to create an environment to avoid another strike when the current MTA contracts expire in three years, develop a long-term plan for the expansion of public transportation for the poor and seek ways to reduce the MTA's $7 billion debt.

``As welcomed as this settlement is for Los Angeles, it is a short-term answer to a much longer-term challenge,'' Mahony said.

Jesse Jackson, who was introduced at the Convention Center as ``the man of the hour,'' praised Williams and the union members.

``Workers - tonight Dr. (Martin Luther) King would be proud of you. Cesar Chavez would be proud of you. (Nelson) Mandela would be proud of you,'' Jackson said. ``You stood up for your hopes and your dreams.''

Yaroslavsky, who spent the night at the Pasadena Hilton with Riordan and Jackson, said Jackson played a pivotal role.

``I don't think we'd be talking about a strike settlement without Jesse Jackson,'' Yaroslavsky said. ``I admired the way he did it. I've been following these negotiations for six months and in two days he came to understand what it's taken me six months to understand and I'm still not sure I understand it.''

CAPTION(S):

photo, 2 boxes

Photo:

Bus driver John Botley of Sun Valley votes on a new deal Tuesday at the Convention Center.

Tina Burch/Staff Photographer

Box: (1) WHAT UTU WORKERS HAVE NOW

(2) WHAT THE NEW CONTRACT PROVIDES