Transport Workers Union Accuses MTA of Dragging Feet Over Contract
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The head of the city’s Transport Workers Union yesterday accused transit authorities of not bargaining in good faith and said talks on a new deal were moving “very slowly” less than a month before a contract expires.
The union has not put specific proposals on the table, but a wage increase, improved health benefits, and security issues are its chief priorities, the Local 100 president, Roger Toussaint, said during a news conference with elected officials at the union’s West Side headquarters.
Mr. Toussaint criticized the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for al locating its $1.04 billion surplus before substantive contract talks began, suggesting the agency was keeping the funds away from its workers.
“We do not believe the MTA is bargaining in good faith when you have a $1.04 billion surplus and you are demanding that we give up our unborn,” Mr. Toussaint said, referring to an MTA proposal to add insurance premiums for new hires.
The transit authority said last week it was planning to use the surplus to pay for unfunded pension benefits, security improvements, structural repairs, and fare discounts during the holidays. Mr. Toussaint said the union believes there was enough money in the surplus to pay for both the transit workers’ demands and to postpone fare hikes scheduled for 2007 and 2009.
He also criticized the MTA’s decision to lower fares during the holiday season for the next two years, saying the $100 million project was intended to “win brownie points” with the public. “The MTA did not issue the discounts with the public’s interest in mind,” Mr. Toussaint said.
A spokesman for the MTA, Tom Kelly, said in a statement that the union’s charges were “ludicrous.” He defended the agency’s plans as “a carefully calibrated use of a non-recurring surplus.”
The union, which represents 38,000 transit workers, is also balking at MTA plans to alter the pension system and to broaden workers’ job titles so that, for example, a station agent would be trained as a conductor, and vice versa, Mr. Toussaint said.
Mr. Kelly wouldn’t discuss specific contract proposals, saying it was too early in the process. The two sides have met for three official bargaining sessions, and a fourth is slated for today, Mr. Toussaint said. The escalating tension between the union and the MTA comes as the current contract is set to expire December 15, just before the annual holiday crush of visitors and tourists. A last-minute agreement during the previous contract talks in 2002 narrowly averted a strike that would have shut down the transit system.
During the 2002 talks, Mayor Bloomberg famously bought a bicycle in case of a strike. He said yesterday he has no plans to do so this year. “I don’t like the idea of having to rush up to a deadline, where there’s panic,” Mr. Bloomberg told reporters at a ribbon cutting ceremony for a courthouse in downtown Brooklyn. “I’d rather have it at the last minute than no agreement, but I think if parties work together they can find a way to do so.” Mr. Toussaint did not raise the possibility of a strike, but he did not rule one out either. “We have done it before; we can do this again,” he said of the talks. “But the MTA needs to bargain in good faith.”