Transit Workers Ready Walkout At Two Bus Lines, Starting Today

With no contract settlement in sight, employees of two private bus lines in Queens planned to strike this morning, giving about 57,000 riders a taste of what may be in store for the rest of the city if a contract between the transit union and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is not reached by midnight tonight.Events over the weekend have heightened the divide over the most contentious issue: the MTA’s insistence that, in order to receive their full pension, new transit workers not be eligible to retire until age 62, seven years later than current workers.The sides resumed negotiations last night at the Grand Hyatt Hotel but the union president, Roger Toussaint, and the MTA chairman, Peter Kalikow, were not present. After about two hours, talks ended. Talks then resumed later, but no progress was reported.Hoping to break the deadlock in their favor, lawyers for Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union filed a petition last night with the Public Employment Relations Board seeking a court order that would keep the union’s pension plan off the table.It is doubtful a court will rule on whether contract negotiations can include discussions of pension plans before midnight tonight, the latest deadline for when union officials say they will order their 34,000 members to shut down the transit system and walk off the job.The union’s board cannot decide whether to take up the issue until the MTA has had a chance to review the petition and submit its own response. The MTA has received the petition from the union, a spokesman for the authority, Tom Kelly, said.The chairman of the employment board, Michael Cuevas, told The New York Sun that the board would act as quickly as possible.“It’s difficult to have any immediate action on this,” Mr. Cuevas said. “We can only proceed as quickly as the parties are able to proceed.”The MTA has five days to respond to the union’s petition.If the board decides the union has a valid claim, it would recommend a state Supreme Court judge to hear the case, another time-consuming process. The union would have to convince a judge that its members would suffer “irreparable harm” if injunctive relief is not granted.Mr. Cuevas, who was appointed to the three-member board in 1998 by Governor Pataki – who is also backing the MTA in its pension demands – said a request to set aside specific issues normally occurs when the two sides are proceeding toward binding arbitration. Neither side has formally declared an impasse that would set arbitration proceedings in motion.Although pensions have been included in past contract talks, “as a general rule pensions are not part of negotiations,” Mr. Cuevas said.Mr. Kalikow on Friday made what he called the authority’s “final offer,” drawing a line in the sand that prompted the most recent standoff. At the heart of the proposal is the authority’s insistence on raising the age when new employees can retire with half their pay to 62 from 55. Mr. Kalikow made a point of saying that current employees would not have their pensions or their health care benefits “affected by one penny.”New employees would also contribute 1% of their wages toward health benefits as part of the MTA’s plan.The union has repeatedly said it would not negotiate an inferior retirement package for new workers, leading it to make an end run around the authority and look to the courts to take the issue off the table.With at least a partial strike imminent in Queens, Mayor Bloomberg reiterated during his weekly radio address yesterday that a system-wide strike is illegal under the state’s Taylor law.“I know I speak for all New Yorkers when I urge TWU to resolve their contract at the bargaining table and not conduct an illegal strike,” Mr. Bloomberg said.Union lawyers have argued that a partial strike involving workers from Jamaica Buses Incorporated and Triboro Coach Corporation bus lines is not illegal, as those employees do not yet work for the authority. The Bloomberg administration has acquired all seven of the city’s private bus lines but ownership of Jamaica will be transferred January 30. Triboro’s ownership will be transferred February 20.

Transit Workers Ready Walkout At Two Bus Lines, Starting Today

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