BATON ROUGE — An organizer with the local bus drivers union chapter said its drivers are willing to return to work and end their ongoing strike as early as Thursday, with drivers returning to work Friday, if Capital Area Transit System leadership agrees not to retaliate against the drivers who act according to their former contract.

At a Thursday news conference in front of CATS headquarters, Amalgamated Transit Union International Senior Organizer Stanley Smalls said that CATS leadership sent a letter to the union's leaders offering to withdraw the contract that caused the current dispute.

Previously ATU members said growing frustrations about wages, work environments and CATS not meeting their negotiations is why the strike, which started Monday, is happening. Smalls noted that union drivers were coming in on their vacation and during the scheduled off days to be on the picket line in protest.

"Who move this city? We move this city!" demonstrators led by Smalls chanted. 

He was scant with details about the contents of the "illegal contract" CATS tried to get the union to agree to, but said that "they were able to agree on some items, but there were items that the union rejected."

"And in that letter... they explicitly told the union president that they were going to impose this contract onto (the union)," Smalls said, noting that the letter would add things the union rejected to the. "Clearly if the union rejected it, we weren't in agreement with it."

Smalls said, however, that new contract left out key points that union members were holding strong on.

"We're going to abide by the old contract until a new one is put in place," Smalls said. "Unless you have an undertone intention to retaliate, I don't see a reason why you wouldn't agree to that."

Smalls added that, when this strike does end, striking drivers will return to work with their "heads held high." He also said that the strike is for fair treatment and conditions for all of the drivers, not just the ones who picketed and went on strike.

"Enough of us have a common goal," he said. "And that common goal is respect for the ones who came out to the strike line and respect for the ones that turned their back on us."