Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato will try to help resolve stalemated negotiations between the Port Authority and the union representing 2,300 bus and trolley operators, mechanics and other hourly employees.

Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato

He said at a news conference yesterday that representatives of Gov. Ed Rendell's office also will be involved and, if it helps, the governor himself. Mr. Rendell led marathon bargaining last weekend to settle a week-long strike at the Philadelphia-based Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority.

Mr. Onorato said he will meet with management and Local 85, Amalgamated Transit Union, next week to set up a schedule of intense bargaining in advance of a Nov. 20 strike authorization vote by the union. The union has talked about a possible walkout Nov. 25 if talks fail to result in substantial progress on a new contract.

"We'll call the parties together before it leads to a strike that would be devastating to the region," he said. "I will do everything I can to avoid one."

He mentioned the last strike by Local 85, spanning 28 days in March-April 1992, which took court intervention to settle and brought substantial ridership losses in the aftermath.

"We don't want to go down that road again," Mr. Onorato said.

The former contract with Local 85 expired June 30. Neither negotiations nor state-led fact-finding resulted in much progress. The main issues involve wages, a proposal for the union to share health-care costs for the first time and higher union contributions to the pension fund.

The Port Authority, the nation's 15th-largest transit system, provides about 240,000 bus, trolley and Mon Incline rides on weekdays, transporting about half of the workers, students and others who commute Downtown.

Both union and authority leaders said they're receptive to bringing fresh faces and ideas into their dispute.

"We welcome any help to reach a settlement," Local 85 President-Business Agent Patrick McMahon said. "We think it will be beneficial. We have no objection whatsoever" to Mr. Onorato or Mr. Rendell becoming personally involved.

In a statement, authority Acting Chief Executive Officer Dennis Veraldi said: "[We appreciate] County Executive Onorato's offer to meet and help resolve the current labor dispute. We welcome his involvement and any other actions which can facilitate the settlement of a new collective bargaining agreement."

Mr. Onorato said that any settlement would not necessarily follow either the one at SEPTA, where union workers will receive 3 percent wage increases in each year of a four-year contract, or the local fact-finding report, which recommended a 4.5 percent increase in wages and up to 30 cents an hour in cost-of-living adjustments in a three-year contract.

"But it's not going to be the status quo, either," he said.

Mr. Onorato said it makes sense to intervene at this point. "If we wait for a strike, we'll be doing the same thing anyhow."

He said the county has a direct interest, "as do the people," inasmuch as the county puts up $1 to match $3 in general operating subsidies from the state. The authority has requested $25.8 million from the county in 2006.

"The public is the first to suffer if there's a strike," Mr. Onorato said. "The authority is heavily subsidized by county and state government, so we have every right to call them into a meeting."

Mr. Onorato also said a strike could jeopardize efforts for the Legislature to approve dedicated long-term funding sought by all transit systems in the state to address their growing financial problems.

The authority and Local 85 traded new proposals a week ago yesterday. The meeting ended quickly and no new bargaining sessions have been scheduled.