The New York State Public Employment Relations Board yesterday designated a three-person arbitration panel with power to determine terms and conditions of employment for the New York City’s 36,000 transit workers. Any decision the panel makes will be binding on both sides of the standoff.

Transport Workers Union Local 100 leaders are apparently split in their reaction to the development. Several, including the president, Roger Toussaint, have emphatically opposed going through an arbiter – even as they have participated in picking the panel. A spokesman for the union would not comment about the appointment of the arbitration panel.

One union vice president, John Mooney, who opposed a preliminary contract, said that in arbitration “we’ll get a better deal than what was negotiated,” because all the figures, including how much money the MTA has, will be put on the table. Two other union vice presidents and opposition leaders, Ainsley Stewart and William Pelletier, also expressed hope for a successful outcome from the arbitration process.

During the strike last December, mediators from PERB, an independent state agency that administers labor disputes for New York State employees and their employers, worked out a preliminary agreement.

In January, the transit workers voted against the proposed contract by seven votes. In April, they voted again and approved it overwhelmingly. However, before that second vote, MTA asked PERB to declare an impasse, which they did in late March. Both sides were then given two weeks to choose one member of the panel, with the third one to be approved by both sides from a list made up by PERB.

After each side struck out some names, PERB designated George Nicolau as the neutral member of the panel, as well as its chair. The MTA chose Gary J. Dellaverson, the agency’s director of labor relations, and the TWU chose Basil Paterson, a former deputy mayor in the Koch administration and a former secretary of state for New York.

Mr. Nicolau, a New York City resident, has served as president of both the National Academy of Arbitrators and the Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution. He has also been involved in Major League Baseball’s labor relations.

A labor historian at New York University, Daniel Walkowitz, said that the arbitrators will likely work to find a middle ground, possibly returning to the terms of the December contract that the leaders of both sides had agreed upon. He said he expects the arbitration to take no longer than a week.

An MTA spokesman, Tom Kelly, said that there is no chance the MTA would accept the contract because it had already been offered and turned down.