Coastside workers struggle with schedules

MOSS BEACH

When the Devil's Slide closure cut the Midcoast off from the rest of the area, many residents worried about getting to work on time. When Raina Koloamatangi couldn't make it, she was suspended.

A longtime employee at AT&T's Yellow Pages division in San Francisco, the 33-year-old mother of three found herself cut off from her 3 year-old daughter's preschool in Pacifica. Dropping her off every day took an hour and a half, after which she would drive to the Colma BART station, since she couldn't afford to park in San Francisco.

"I'd get to work at 10:30," said Koloamatangi, whose husband works in Menlo Park and takes classes that prevent him from driving their two other children to school.

She can't afford a preschool closer to work, which would have helped save time.

Koloamatangi says her supervisor was unsympathetic, denying her request to work through lunchor take a leave of absence. She says she was suspended from May 2 to 8, and again from May 15 to June 15, causing her family to lose $3,600. She has filed a grievance with the company to try to get the money back.

"Once (the Governor) declared a state of emergency, I thought I was going to be fine. I was shocked when they did this to me," she said. "Everyone I talk to says their bosses allow them to have flextime."

Making an effort

Koloamatangi's story is unusual; many large Peninsula employers have, in fact, offered their Coastside employees more flexible hours and the chance to work from home since the closure of Devil's Slide.

John Britton, AT&T's director of corporate communication, said ongoing grievance proceedings prevented him from discussing Koloamatangi's punishment.

"Clearly, the company understands that the closure causes problems for some commuters," he said. "We worked with this employee to offer an adjustment of hours. We've tried to be understanding and very accommodating."

Koloamatangi said the company did offer to have her come in an hour later - if she agreed to drop her grievance.

"I told them no thanks," she said. "But we're really struggling financially now. Food is really scarce around here because of it."

Over 80 percent of the Coastside work force commutes over the hill every day - about 13,500 people, according to the Half Moon Bay Chamber of Commerce.

By many accounts, the traffic at peak hours still creates two-hour back-ups for Midcoast residents, who sometimes don't get home until 8 p.m. or later.

San Mateo County has introduced a flextime program specifically for the 192 Coastside residents who work in its departments, allowing them to come in later if they need to. Steve Rossi, a representative of the county's Department of Employment and Public Services, predicted that almost all of them would take advantage of it.

Genentech, one of the county's largest employers of Coastside residents, reacted to the closure in early June by offering a shuttle bus for workers.

SamTrans also recently added extra bus service from Montara to the San Bruno and Daly City BART stations. And last Thursday, the City/County Association of Governments approved $160,000 in emergency funding for a shuttle that will pick up residents of Pacifica and Montara and transport them to the Bayside.

"They're having to be in traffic the same length of time, but they're not doing the driving," said Christine Maley-Grubl, executive director of the Peninsula Traffic Congestion Relief Alliance.

Homeward bound

Other Coastsiders have been able to persuade their employers to let them work from home. Montara resident Joel Farbstein began telecommuting from his job with a health-care publication in San Bruno several months ago.

"What was a 20-minute commute had become a two-hour commute," Farbstein said. "Recognizing that, my boss has been very understanding, and lets me work from home three days a week."

Retail and service workers, however, have little choice about when they are permitted to show up for work. Stephen Forester, a 20-year-old El Granada resident, tries to work extra-late shifts at Trader Joe's in San Mateo just to avoid the traffic. Sometimes he works from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Fortunately, he said, his supervisors understand his predicament.

"One of the managers lives over on the coast, so he knows how hard it is to get over here," said Forester. "When there's only one way to drive here, you don't really have a choice."