The Dallas Transit System made good on its threat and fired 400 striking bus company employees, but no major disruptions in city traffic were forecast for today. In Boston, striking workers at the Massachusetts Port Authority walked off the job, leaving a gnarl of tied-up rush hour traffic on the city's major arteries.
The firings Wednesday in Dallas of 400 illegally striking bus drivers, mechanics and bus cleaners who have refused to work for the past seven days in a wage dispute left the DTS with less than half of its regular employees.
DTS Spokeswoman Claudia Goad said 119 buses were operated Wednesday by supervisors and non-striking drivers, compared to the 500 buses that normally run.
In the first few days of the strike there was some traffic tie-ups and downtown parking lots were reported full. But after the suprise of the strike wore off, it has had little major impact in the city, where cars are the primary method of transportation.
The members of the Amalgamated Transit Union, already given a 7 percent wage increase as city workers, walked out in an effort to gain an additional 6.4 percent raise from the transit company.
Transit rules allow the immediate termination of any employee who misses five consecutive unauthorized workdays, and altogether some 430 have been fired in the strike. The company empolyed about 700 drivers, mechanics and cleaners before the strike.
The walkout was considered illegal because Dallas transit workers, as municipal employees, are forbidden under Texas law from striking.
'We're back to being a little transit system,' Ms. Goad said, adding it could take two years before the system resumes its pre-walkout service.
She said applications for new drivers, mechanics and cleaners already were being taken but said it would take time before novices were sufficientlytrained to bring the system back up to par. The system serves about 65,000 regular riders daily.
In Boston, 250 union members working at Massport walked off their jobs early Wednesday and appeared no closer to a settlement of their pay dispute today.
Some of the strikers were toll takers on the Mystic River Bridge, which funnels traffic from two major highways into the downtown business district.
Massport officials said morning rush hour traffic was backed up over one mile because only three non-union collectors were available for duty.
'Some of (the motorists) are using some of the on ramps as off ramps, and drivers are going down it the wrong to avoid the tie-up,' a Massachusetts District Commission spokesman said. 'It creates a danger.'
Other striking workers are employed at the airport and the Castle Island and Moran marine terminals as maintenance, ground and heavy transportation personnel and heavy equipment operators, but there picket lines 'had little effect,' according to Massport officials.
The strikers, including 190 members of Teamsters Local 157 and 27 members of Electrical Workers Local 103, were unhappy over the cost-of-living provisions in the latest contract offered by Massport and no new bargaining sessions have been scheduled.
