P.M. BRIEFING : No Talks in Greyhound Strike

Greyhound drivers walked picket lines today, some wearing black armbands in memory of a striker crushed by a bus driven by a replacement. Fewer companies than expected applied to take over Greyhound’s routes.

The union, meanwhile, said the company turned down a request to resume talks, but America’s only nationwide bus system said it hasn’t formally been asked.

Greyhound has been operating with 700 replacement drivers plus, it says, 350 union drivers who crossed picket lines. But the Amalgamated Council of Greyhound Local Unions said only 95 union-represented drivers are behind the wheel.

Some strikers who wouldn’t cross the picket lines did stay off them Sunday in memory of a co-worker crushed to death by a bus while picketing in Redding, Calif. James La Sala, the union’s international president, called today for five minutes of silence by the pickets on Wednesday to coincide with the beginning of a memorial service for the driver, 59-year-old Robert Waterhouse.