Assembly OKs Bill to Protect MTA Workers : Labor: Democrats pass measure to guard labor contracts if bus lines split off from transit agency. Valley business leaders and Republicans object.

Despite heated objections from Republicans, local officials and San Fernando Valley business leaders, Assembly Democrats on Thursday passed legislation that protects bus workers if regional transit districts are spun off from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Backed by powerful Democrats including Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles) and Senate President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco), the bill would force new transit zones formed in areas served by the MTA to inherit its labor union contracts.

It also would prevent future labor deals from being negotiated by a private company instead of a public entity, as is now done by Foothill Transit, a privately managed San Gabriel Valley area bus agency. Foothill is widely seen as a model of how to provide bus service better and cheaper than the MTA.

“We all aspire to have efficient and effective government,” said Assemblyman Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles). “But in doing so, we should not disturb working families.”

The move to fragment the MTA is part of a much larger political movement in Los Angeles, rooted in the San Fernando Valley, to dismantle massive government agencies that many see as unresponsive bureaucracies in hopes of more efficiency and local control. The Los Angeles Unified School District and the city itself are the other chief targets of secessionists.

Local officials in nine San Fernando Valley area cities are proposing to break away from the MTA to run the 27 bus lines serving the Valley and surrounding communities. In the San Gabriel Valley, Foothill Transit hopes to expand into Pasadena and other cities.

Though they take no position on an MTA breakup, labor unions are wary of a repeat or expansion of Foothill Transit, which achieved its increased economic efficiency in large part by cutting workers’ salaries and benefits.

“We want to take ourselves out of the debate over creating bus zones by eliminating the possibility that our workers could lose what they have been working for all their lives,” said Barry Broad, lobbyist for the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents 2,000 MTA workers.

Proponents of the transit zones, however, say the legal requirement that they take on the labor deals would make it all but impossible to achieve local control and independence from the MTA, and would, in essence, lead to the creation of inefficient “mini MTAs.”

“You’d now have the same folks who can’t deliver services recreating the MTA in the Valley. This is a huge victory for the downtown bureaucracy,” said Richard Katz, co-chairman of the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn.’s Transportation Committee.

The bill, which was passed by the Senate in a slightly different form, now returns there for a consensus vote.

The bitter dispute has divided Democrats, who have sided with their traditional labor allies, and Republicans, who have sided with local elected officials and business leaders who favor MTA dissolution.

Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Northridge) railed against the bill Thursday on the Assembly floor, describing it as a union ploy to preserve “bloated” and “corrupt” MTA union contracts at the expense of local control and improved service for Valley residents.

“It takes away the right of self-determination for the San Fernando Valley,” McClintock said. “The San Fernando Valley wants out of these contracts so it can provide twice as many buses. But the unions won’t let it.”

Democrats, including several representing the Valley, strongly disagreed. Assemblyman Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks) took offense at claims that the bill thwarts any new transit zones.

Opponents said they still hope to defeat the transit bill, possibly with a veto by Gov. Gray Davis, who has not taken a position on it.