In an often-heated and sometimes subdued meeting on Central Campus Monday evening, bus drivers and administrators avoided a potential employee strike by sitting down to discuss allegations that the recent termination of transportation services supervisor Daniel Breeden was racially motivated.
During the meeting, about 17 bus drivers discussed Breeden's allegedly forced resignation, which Breeden delivered verbally to administrators Nov. 10 but withdrew in writing Monday afternoon. He had been given the choice last Friday either to resign or be terminated, according to an administrative source who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The allegations, which have not been made public, center on charges that Breeden violated University regulations by borrowing money from at least two subordinates, according to the administrative source and two people intimately involved in the case.
In a meeting earlier Monday afternoon, about 17 employees said that they were prepared to go on strike if administrators refused to reinstate Breeden. "Once we strike, those buses will not move," said bus driver Faye McClain, one of the main organizers of the protest efforts. Other drivers said that they would consider picketing in front of the Chapel or possibly during Thursday morning's on-campus broadcast of "Good Morning, America."
The Monday night meeting, however, seemed more or less to defuse the situation. Almost all of the drivers left saying that they would not strike, although some did say they were angry that their demand was not met.
McClain, however, said she still had not decided whether or not she would strike and that she was not pleased with the outcome of the meeting. "Nobody's happy," she said. "We want Danny's job back. We want better working conditions. We want to be respected as human beings, and not as just simple black bus drivers.É All we want is fairness."
Due to University regulations, administrators at the meeting said they could not discuss the specifics of Breeden's case, which seemed to frustrate some of the drivers. But Joe Pietrantoni, associate vice president for auxiliaries, said that despite this fact, he understood the drivers' concerns and wanted to continue working with them to resolve any remaining disputes. He also said that he was glad that the strike seemed to have been avoided.
"I was pleased that our employees not just would run the buses, but that they were willing to come back to work and continue with the process of looking at this problem," Pietrantoni said. "It doesn't do me any good to have people disgruntled, so we would work together in harmony to get a good, strong working force that works in harmony with each other--labor and management. And that's my purpose--that's where I'm headed."
One reason that the drivers may have been willing to call off the strike was that they were told at the meeting that their union would not support them.
Because the strike would be held on behalf of a supervisor, who is not represented by the drivers' union, the union would be legally unable to back the strikers, said Tommy Mullins, international vice president for the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents full-time bus drivers at the University and across the country.
"Our position is that this is an issue that is outside the relationship between this union and the University," Mullins said.
Although the strike seemed to be averted by the end of the meeting, some drivers had already made their opinions known during a more subtle protest yesterday. Several drivers participated in a "sick-out" Monday to object to Breeden's termination.
Seventeen bus drivers called in sick yesterday, said Toby Kahr, associate vice president for human resources. But Kahr declined to speculate on any correlation between the protest and the absences, saying, "As far as the University is concerned, people called in sick." Kahr said that false claims of sickness, regardless of the reason behind them, are grounds for discharge.
Marty Pratt was one of only a handful of black bus drivers who came to work yesterday. He said he was told by one of the other drivers that he would be "looked down upon" by many of the other black drivers because of his refusal to participate in the "sick-out," but that he stood by his decision.
"Danny Breeden was a good man, but if he borrowed money from someone under him, that's out of order, and I'm not going to back that," Pratt said.
In the Monday afternoon meeting, Breeden's supporters said they do not believe the allegations against him and added that administrators do not have enough evidence to justify forcing him to resign.
"If they don't have solid evidence and don't have his name signed on a receipt saying `I owe such and such,' a certain amount of money, then they can't fire him," said one bus driver. "What they need to be doing is rewarding the damn man instead of bringing him down."
Instead of focusing specifically on Breeden's case, the afternoon discussion dealt more with concerns about what almost all drivers said was an atmosphere of pervasive racial prejudice in transportation services. Drivers cited examples of what they considered to be racially biased practices on the part of administrators in the department, such as passing over black drivers in favor of white drivers for choice assignments, regardless of seniority.
Louise Davis, who has worked in transportation for 33 years and driven at the University for 15 years, said that Breeden made work bearable for many drivers, black and white, who have come to enjoy their jobs less and less. But the racial tensions, she said, are nothing new. "This problem ain't just surfacing--it's been there, but Danny kept it smooth," she said.
In a phone interview before the afternoon meeting, McClain said that Breeden was a superb supervisor for all the drivers, regardless of race.
"He's a supervisor that goes to the bat for the drivers--not only the black ones, but the white ones as well," she said. "All we want is Danny to get his job back."
If he does not tender his resignation by Friday, Breeden will be terminated unless he and administrators come to a different agreement before then.
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