STATEMENT FROM GEORGE NICOLAU, CHAIRPERSON, PUBLIC ARBITRATION PANEL OF THE NEW YORK STATE PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS BOARD
After 10 days of hearings in the matter of the impasse arbitration between Transport Workers Union, Local 100, and MTA New York City Transit, the evidentiary portion of the case has concluded. The parties have been directed by the Chairman to file their briefs by November 15, 2006.
The MTA gave preliminary budget approval yesterday for a $330,000 education program with the John Jay College, Institute for Transportation Systems. Let’s hope more resources are spent on its Transportation Labor Relations training.
-- Chuck Bennett amNY.com
Charged words: Mayor Bloomberg sparked a public spat with Queens lawmakers in residents after a praising Con Ed chief Kevin Burke’s handling of the blackouts which left thousands of folks in the dark and wreaked havoc on subway schedules. [amNY]
Found money: Better than expected real estate tax revenues brought in $211 million more than expected to the MTA. But how that plays out in the preliminary budget tomorrow is unclear. Anyway, the MTA’s “found” money and growing surplus is becoming a reoccurring story. [amNY]
West Side Yards: It looks like a vote on the city’s $500 million offer for the rail yards won’t be rushed through a board vote tomorrow. Too many questions and not enough time, board members say. [Newsday via amNY]
Maybe he’s no a morning person. Union protests outside MTA Chair Peter Kalikow’s home yesterday. But was Kalikow even there? Meanwhile, an analysis by the Daily News concludes that the union’s public pressure campaign failed to get its contract ratified failed. Binding arbitration begins August 4. [amNY, Daily News]
Hit on the job: Transit worker Dexter Stinson, 38, was hit early yesterday morning by a No. 2 train near the Jackson Ave. stop while inspecting something on the tracks. A cherry picker was need to haul the 300 pound man to an ambulance. Rescue workers couldn’t handle him alone? Between two people it seems manageable. Anyway, Stinson, a train operator who joined the MTA in 1998, was in intensive care last night. [NY Post]
Second Ave. subway: The MTA is moving forward with underground easements to build the first part of the Second Ave. subway from 96th Street to 63rd St. Completion date is still 2012. [Daily News]
Oooh that smell: Curbed has a lively discussion on various smells on the subway and PATH. [Curbed]
Photo by amNY
-- Chuck Bennett
MTA board member Barry Feinstein, seems pretty unperturbed with the early morning protests planned for tomorrow.
“It’s certainly fair. Their posture is one that is perfectly fine and appropriate. I don’t have any difficulty with them doing it,” Feinstein, a former Teamsters labor leader who now chairs the New York City Transit Committee of the MTA board, said.
“I don’t think it will make a difference in the posture of the MTA board but I have no quarrel with their right to do it,” he added.
Besides, he said, he has a busy day tomorrow and will likely be out of the house before 6:30 a.m.
-- Chuck Bennett
This just in from the transit union:
"New York transit workers will gather Thursday outside the home of MTA Board Member (and former Teamsters official) Barry Feinstein to hold an informational picket from 6:30-8:30 am. The leaflets will protest the continued inaction by Feinstein and the rest of the MTA Board on the contract that the MTA and TWU Local 100 agreed upon in December. Feinstein personally called for a second vote on the contract, which the TWU subsequently held. Now, he has flip-flopped on the issue, turning his back on New York’s 34,000 transit workers despite his labor past."
Feinstein lives in White Plains.
-- Chuck Bennett
Former top MTA counter terrorism official Nicholas Casale offered this tidbit of the transit agency’s pre-9/11 mindset today:
On September 10, 2001, MTA police working on Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road lines reported Gary Dellaverson. Mr. Dellavreson, of couse, is head of labor relations of the MTA and best know nowadays for his role in the ongoing contract impasse with the TWU.
Now, the police report to the director of security, something he praised the agency for changing.
-- Chuck Bennett
Overlooked in a Chief article this week (no link available) was this warning from the transit union prez on more protests like the ones outside MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow’s home:
“Mr. Toussaint responded that the union planned more of the same, with visits to the homes of other MTA board members likely. A demonstration outside MTA headquarters is also expected during its next board meeting.”
So who’s next?
-- Chuck Bennett
Transit union kept up its promise to protest outside the rail rodeo on Saturday. It didn’t seem to garner any media attention, though.
From the press release:
The Union says the agency should not spend large amounts of money on such events while they are still without a contract. Members say the MTA's refusal to negotiate is putting thousands of transit families at risk.
"We out here protesting the rodeo,” said TWU member Nelson Rivera. “They have money for the rodeo, but they don't want to respect their workers."
UPDATE: It shouldn't be forgotten that New York City Transit still kicked butt.
"MTA New York City Transit won the prestigious Rail Transit Team Achievement Award at the fourteenth Annual International Rail Rodeo, held in conjunction with the American Public Transportation Association’s Rail Conference in New York City. The winners were announced today. The MTA New York City Transit winning team included: Jesus Rodriguez (Operator), Clinton Blair (Operator), Jianmin Hsiao (Maintainer), Anton Samoylozich (Maintainer), and Brian Randall (Maintainer). " -- from the American Public Transportation Association.
-- Chuck Bennett
From the TWU:
"New York transit workers will gather Thursday outside the home of MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow to hand out leaflets to his neighbors from 6:30-8:00 am. The leaflets will protest the continued inaction by Kalikow and the MTA Board on the contract that the MTA and TWU Local 100 agreed upon in December. That contract has been approved by TWU members, but Chairman Kalikow still refuses to allow the MTA Board to vote on it."
Is Roger bringing donuts and coffee?
-- Chuck Bennett
This Saturday every Local 100 officer is asked to attend an “expanded joint executive board” to embrace a “clear program to Defend Local 100.”
“These are challenging times. The Taylor Law fines have started. The Governor and the MTA are stonewalling on our contract and pushing hard to expediate binding arbitration. The media is targeting transit workers and our Union,” the flier says.
Now is that fair? Targeting transit workers? With the exception of the occasional sleeping token booth clerk, news reports have generally been respectful of the rank-and-file. If the public expressed anger over the strike it was not the media’s fault.
Also, apparently a motion to be introduced at the meeting by the motormen in Rapid Transit Operations that called for Local 100 to secede from the international if there is still no contract by June 16 was shelved. No drama there.
-- Chuck Bennett
Full-time union members are floating an innovative way to save the cash-strapped Local 100 money — rotating lay offs.
Union prez Roger Toussaint has been firing full-time staff to cope with its $2.5 million Taylor Law fine for the strike last December — safety officer Robert Ortiz was latest to get the ax.
Now some members want chair or vice chair of various divisions to go back to work for the Transit
Authority for one month periods at a time to save the union payroll expenses. That way they could keep everybody around and stave future cuts.
-- Chuck Bennett
A victory for Roger Toussaint.
From the city law department:
"The TWU Local 100 has agreed to begin on June 1, 2006, paying the $2.5 million in fines assessed against it for its illegal strike at the rate of $208,333.33 per month. It has also agreed not to seek the restoration of its dues check-off for at least three months after paying the fines, and to do so only after it advises the Court of its agreement to comply with the Taylor Law, including its prohibition against strikes. All parties have agreed that the $2.5 million to be paid by the TWU will be paid to New York City. The money will be returned to the union only if it prevails on its pending appeals. In light of these agreements, the City has decided not to proceed with its lawsuit to obtain still additional damages from the union. "
In the press release, the city says, "We hope that this hefty fine and the loss of the dues check-off will warn the TWU and other unions that contemplate violating the law that the law must be obeyed, and that public employees and their unions have no right to betray the public's trust by engaging in illegal strikes."
But this clearly a win for Roger Toussaint.
He now has time to perfect a system of dues collection without deducting from members' paychecks. This alone could make the Taylor Law a lot less threatening to the Transport Workers Union and other public unions statewide. Plus payments of $208,333 a month will be somewhat managable -- especially with all the layoffs lately.
In a statement, Toussaint said:
“The order imposed by Judge Jones allows us both to stretch out the payment of Taylor Law fines over the course of 12 months and to put off suspension of our dues checkoff for a full year. We intend to use this opportunity to permanently replace dues checkoff with direct payments to the union. We will use this as a challenge to reinvent Local 100 into a union driven by one-on-one contact with our members. The Taylor Law is in dire need of reform, and we hope that the State Legislature takes the necessary and appropriate steps to protect workers from out of control bureaucracies like the MTA.”
-- Chuck Bennett
Transport Workers Union Local 100 is gearing up for Lobby Day in Albany tomorrow.
Perhaps, they will urge union-friendly pols to endorse a bill by state Sen. Nicholas Spano (R-Westchester) and Assemblyman Adriano Espaillat (D-Manhattan) that will amend the Taylor Law and punish state agencies for bargaining in bad faith. The agency would have to pay 50% of any Taylor Law fines a union was hit with for striking, according to the NY Post.
Also, see the Posts editorial blasting — obviously — the law.
Meanwhile, the Post also reports the transit union keeps going after so-called “scabs” during the strike. But, the guys hit with union penalties claim they picketed with everyone else.
And Fred Dicker reports that MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow could endorse Hillary Clinton for re-election. I don’t know how many votes he commands — he’s not too popular with his transit workers now — but his money couldn’t hurt.
The Daily News has an interesting piece on new subway ads on the way. Apparently advertising execs want to paint the tunnels with images that will appear like a “silent movie” through the window as the train barrels through.
As long as there is no annoying sound to go along with it, why not?
The article also said it has been tried on the PATH trains. Anyone ever see it?
-- Chuck Bennett
Monday marks six months that the Transport Workers Union Local 100 has been working without a contract.
-- Chuck Bennett
Mitch Pally isn’t backing down from trying to get the board to approve the transit union contract. Pally, who represents Suffolk County, was the only voting board member to say the contract should be approved.
In a letter to Chairman Peter Kalikow he asked that the contract be placed on the May 24 board meeting agenda, according to the Daily News. MTA had no comment. No shocker there.
The Post followed Roger Toussaint to the Bronx where he was greeted like a hero by striking Waste Management workers (by some accounts those guys appear to be getting a raw deal). Local 108’s secretary-treasurer called him a “working-class hero.”
Toussaint gave them some media savvy advice. “You need to take this show on the road and form secondary pickets,” the Post quoted him as saying. “There are no television cameras here.”
One reader reacting to my story in today’s amNewYork on how transit workers out on medical leave got hit with Taylor Law sympathized with the MTA.
“I hope Mr. Foster has a full recovery from his illness, however, I do believe he should be fined like everyone else. If he and the others who were sick that day or were out on vacation had been at work, they also would have struck,” he wrote.
FRIVOLOUS UPDATE: Toussaint shaved the goatee.
-- Chuck Bennett
Judging from the TWU’s latest court papers, the transit union and MTA management really don’t talk to each other. It seems all the evidence concerning the MTA’s positions are comments made to the press -- not to the union.
-- Chuck Bennett
The transit union formally filed its lawsuit in Manhattan state Supreme Court today asking a judge to force the MTA to put its post-strike contract up to a board vote, according to the AP. MTA declined to comment on the suit and has repeatedly said that offer is no longer on the table.
-- Chuck Bennett
An editorial in the public employee/civil service newspaper The Chief speculated on the loss of dues check off for the transit union.
"It's not unrealistic to believe, given the experience a quarter-century ago, that Local 100 would be lucky to collect 25 cents on the dollar from its rank and file, which would amount to a loss of $3.6 million in dues income over the next three months. That would bring the total hit above $6 million by the time the union could petition Justice Jones for relief."
Meanwhile, a lot of the people manning the vigil outside Toussaint's jail cell are being paid for their time.
-- Chuck Bennett
MTA spokesman Tom Kelly says today there is nothing about offering the transit union contract for ratification on the board meeting agenda. The full board meeting is tomorrow.
The transit union has been banking that all the public pressure from it’s successful revote of the contract, to rallies, to its march, and finally Toussaint’s jail sentence would create enough public pressure and force the MTA to cave and accept it.
“It is up to the MTA to decide if they want an agreement or further confrontation. They should recognize the fundamental fairness of of agreeing to their own offer or they can reopen a war that no one will win,” Toussaint said minutes before turning himself in yesterday.
But the MTA is sticking to binding arbirtration.
“I don’t expect, at least with my last conversations with the chairman, that there will be any change in the policy of the MTA which is that we are going to binding arbitration,” Barry Feinstein, an MTA board member and chair of the New York City Transit Committee, said Monday.
Asked about Toussaint’s jail sentence, Feinstein said, “It does not increase the pressure on us.”
-- Chuck Bennett
For what it may be worth, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said the MTA should honor the union-ratified contract.
“The City of New York has gone too long without a contract between the MTA and the TWU. Now that the transit workers have voted in support of the contract offer, we cannot to let this opportunity pass. That's why I am calling on the MTA to join with the workers, accept the contact and focus on what all New Yorkers want them to do: provide safe, clean, timely public transportation services," she said.
Part of the public pressure plan of the union, I guess.
-- Chuck Bennett
Barely mentioned in today’s many stories about the transit union’s ratification of its contract the second time around were the reactions by the dissidents.
Union vice president Ainsley Stewart, who spearheaded the two Vote No campaigns, waited outside 80 West End Ave. to speak to reporters.
“This is what we call a tie,” he said. “The president in fairness should call a third vote. ... Yes, I’m serious.”
Fellow dissident and executive board member Marty Goodman was a bit more restrained. He blamed the passage on a “concerted fear campaign” by Toussaint. “We are fuming mad out here. We don’t want give backs shoved down our throat.”
-- Chuck Bennett
Mass transit in Denver began rolling again today after a week-long strike.
The 1,750 members of the striking ATU Local 1001 already approved their new contract Friday -- same wage increases but with a larger initial raise.
No drama for them.
-- Chuck Bennett
Ainsley Stewart and his misleading math is the focus of two fliers being circulated by union leadership.
Stewart, the vocal contract foe and dissident union vice president, has often called the 1.5% health insurance premium 4.5% over three years. Union prez Roger Toussaint has blamed Stewart and that faulty math for blaming a major role in the contract’s rejection.
One flier is a copy of a letter to the editor of The Chief by a man claiming to be a confused car inspector. Download chiefpdf.pdf
The other is a Tracker blog entry from last week. Download am_ny_roger_is_right.pdf
Meanwhile, workers have until April 18 to get their second votes in.
-- Chuck Bennett
Transport Workers Union Local 100 workers have been receiving notices today about the revote on its rejected post-strike contract. The final day of voting will be April 18 more than a week before the April MTA board meeting.
Unlike the first time around workers are not getting a copy of the Memorandum of Understanding but a brochure by union leadership explaining why they should vote yes. Like last vote, however, workers can say yes or no to the contract with paper ballots, telephone or Internet.
PIN numbers and official instructions will be mailed on April 6 by the American Arbitration Association.
Oddly, the TWU declined to comment.
-- Chuck Bennett
Ainsley Stewart’s math is wrong, Marty Goodman said after the MTA board meeting.
Goodman, a transit union executive board member, dissident, and arch-foe to the rejected contract made it clear that he personally never tried to portray the 1.5% health insurance premium in the rejected contract as 4.5%.
It is only Ainsley Stewart, Goodman said. Goodman then said the false 4.5% just gives Toussaint more ammunition in his attempt to discredit the vote no movement.
“What I have said repeatedly, when you have 10.5% over you three years you are losing 1.5% worth each year of the gross and that adds up to 4.5% but I never said compounded,” Stewart told the Tracker Monday. “It is 4.5% over three years but “averages out to 1.5%” over three years, he said.
Stewart’s latest flier says “take away 4.5% for health care cost over three years.”
Roger Toussaint claims the 4.5% number just confuses the workers.
The real number is, of course, just 1.5% each year or 1.5% over three years. It doesn't change.
Last December, Stewart, a dissident union VP and a contract foe, was even more confusing with his math.
The Post quoted him: “I don't like the idea of a medical increase,” he said. “We're paying 4.5 percent for medical [benefits] over the course of the contract. That means we're only getting a 6 percent increase in pay.”
-- Chuck Bennett
There are two ways to look at 1.5% with this transit union contract.
The controversial part of the rejected contract now up for a revote is the 1.5% of gross wage deduction for a new health insurance premium to pay for the health care of retirees.
Union leadership says all the 1.5% does it reduce the 10.5% in raises over three years to a 9% raise over three years.
Union dissidents, on the other hand, like Ainsley Stewart have repeatedly said, that the contribution equals 4.5% over the life of the contract so the raise is just 6%.
Roger is right and Ainsley is wrong.
Let’s figure it out. The contract up for a vote calls for 3%, 4% and 3.5% in raises.
Let’s say a worker makes $1,000 a pay check. The first year a worker will get $30 extra for for his 3% raise and then lose $15 for the 1.5% health insurance deduction. Total of $1,015.
The next year, the worker’s pay check, now at $1,030 will rise 4% to $1,071.20. Subtract the 1.5% for health insurance ($16.07) and he ends up with $1055.13.
The final year, the worker's pay check at $1,071.20 rises 3.5% ($38.5) to $1,109.70. Subtract 1.5% for health insurance ($16.65). So the worker ends up with $1,093.05.
After three years, the worker’s pay check including raises and minus health insurance, rose 9.305% from $1,000 to $1,093.05.
Roger’s math is right. Anyone figure differently?
-- Chuck Bennett
The transit union’s revote operation marches on.
Even as the binding arbitration begins, the MTA has begun circulating new “vote yes” fliers among workers and on it’s Web site.
One flier says it was impossible to negotiate with the MTA after the January 20 rejection of the contract. And the arbitration proposal “took most of contract’s value off the table.” There will be no pension refund and “lifetime medical coverage” -- actually coverage until Medicare kicks in. It warns the MTA is again seeking new pension tier for new hires and wants work rule changes and one-person train operation.
“The 2005 contract has real value and real protections for transit workers. Binding Arbitration does not,” the flier concludes.
Another explains the new 1.5% contribution of gross wages for health insurance.
“Nobody likes to have to contribute 1.5%. Local 100 was on strike. This is what it took to get the big value contract items so we could end the strike with a victory. It was a serious battle, with big risks. Both sides were trading punches,” it reads.
Meanwhile, the anti-contract, anti-Toussaint “Committee for a Better Contract” has promised to see the contract rejected again.
-- Chuck Bennett
BREAKING NEWS:
Public Employment Relations Board orders binding abritration for transit union and MTA. No ifs ands or buts about it. The MTA wanted it and the union didn't.
“The decision speaks for itself,” says MTA spokesman Tom Kelly. Download TIA2005-045-BD1.pdf
-- Chuck Bennett
It appears the MTA is softening its stance to a revote.
Just last week, the MTA insisted that the rejected contract is now off the table.
But yesterday, MTA spokesman Tom Kelly said, “We are not ruling anything out.”
And the MTA’s labor negotiator Gary Dellaverson told the Daily News, “We never ruled out what ultimate outcomes are possible.”
Meanwhile, union official Ed Watt has said the revote could happen within two weeks.
-- Chuck Bennett
Re-voting happens all the time in Albany.
“In the Legislature you get a second vote,” said Assemblyman Herman “Denny” Farrell, chairman of the state Democratic committee at Toussaint’s City Hall press conference today supporting the re-vote. “If a bill goes down you get a second vote.”
-- Chuck Bennett
It’s a bit late, but this appeared to slip under the radar. Last Friday on his weekly radio show, Mayor Bloomberg predicted that the transit union and the MTA will end their contract struggle before a state arbitrator steps in — but the deal won’t be as good for the workers:
“The next deal is not going to be as good. How you put that genie back in the bottle? I don’t know. The MTA has, I gather, the right to go to binding arbitration and they believe, who knows whether it’s true, that they will do better. It’s a little bit hard to have sympathy for the TWU because they did have the option of — I mean I feel sorry for the individual members — but they did have the option, and they turned it down. If I had to guess, I would guess that they’ll come to an agreement before they go to [arbitration].”
-- Chuck Bennett
Re-voting may sound anti-democratic to some who don’t like the idea of re-doing elections until leaders get the results they want.
It doesn’t sit well with one City Council aide who wryly noted to the Tracker in an e-mail, “I mean imagine if a city of people voted for term limits twice but some legislative body kept on threatening to overturn their voice or make them vote again.”
-- Chuck Bennett
The Straphangers Campaign just came out in favor of contract re-vote.
"Arbitration - in which the rank and file will have no vote - is a recipe for potential unrest for years to come. This can't possibly be the legacy that Chairman Kalikow wants to leave," the group said in a statement asking the MTA to honor the re-voted contract including the pension refund side agreement.
-- Chuck Bennett
Richard Curreri, the state mediator in the middle of the transit union and MTA’s labor dispute, may be a student of Henry Kissinger.
In an interview yesterday, Toussaint described Curreri’s role as “shuttle diplomacy” between himself and the MTA.
In separate meetings, Curreri let Toussaint know, that the MTA wants to take the $130 million pension refunds off the table. That message, apparently passed from the MTA through Curreri to Toussaint, prompted his call for a re-vote. Now Toussaint insists the pension refunds is part of the contract his members may be re-voting on. Of course, the MTA said no way, we want arbitration.
And for the record, Toussaint denied having anything to do with the re-vote petitions.
“We began receiving petitions from the workers the very day the contract was voted out,” he said. “It picked up power on its own. Eventually it became a structured re-vote campaign, but it was something grassroots.”
-- Chuck Bennett
The Daily News has an interesting tidbit about the contract re-vote -- Eliot Spitzer is for it.
Spitzer has a better than decent shot of becoming governor -- so if this contract drama drags on until next January at least the TWU will have a friend in the governor’s mansion, a friend who appoints the next MTA chairman. Maybe also a friend who will happily approve the $130 million in pension refunds.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is also for the re-vote, according to the article.
Although, on the other hand, much of the rank-and-file of the TWU seem to hate Spitzer for enforcing the Taylor Law.
-- Chuck Bennett
This is surely to give more fire to the anti-Toussaint crowd: The Post reports that the transit union hired On Target Research to poll workers on a contract re-vote. Workers are being called at home and at work to find out if they would support a re-vote, if they felt the strike was worth it, and if they would voluntarily pay their dues.
Now the union vigorously denies it has anything to do with petitions being circulated calling for a re-vote. But, plenty of workers have seen full-time union staffers shopping the petitions around. Toussaint has only said it is premature to discuss a re-vote.
Before the Jan. 20 vote, the transit union polled workers at home, sent MailGrams, held town hall meetings, placed advertisements and other hallmarks of a political campaign. Vocal opponents of the contract — like executive board member Marty Goodman — have long blasted Roger Toussaint for hiring “Hollywood spin doctors Ken Sunshine Associates” to consult on public relations. I’m sure they’ll now include On Target Research in their talking points.
Instead of polls, the ‘dissidents’ say, why not another mass membership meeting to publicly air out everyone’s grievances.
-- Chuck Bennett
The transit union’s last chance to avoid arbitration is tomorrow.
Richard Curreri, the top mediator of the Public Employment Relations Board, will meet with the transit union and the MTA seperately Tuesday. No other details about the meetings have been released but it doesn’t like the TWU or MTA will meet face to face.
“It represents one final opportunity to see if the parties can resolve their dispute voluntarily,” said James Edgar, executive director of PERB.
If not, then it’s binding arbitration -- something the MTA wanted all along.
-- Chuck Bennett
PERB just said the MTA and TWU should back to the table. No binding arbitration for now.
-- Chuck Bennett
The TWU is seeking direct bank withdrawals from its members to keep it financially afloat, according to the Daily News. With the loss of automatic dues check-off from workers’ pay checks -- a penalty from the “illegal” strike -- along with a $3 million fine, the union has got real money worries.
-- Chuck Bennett
Now vocal transit union members opposed to the rejected contract say they will circulate their own petition opposing a re-vote.
Meanwhile, everybody seems to just be waiting on PERB to decide if there is an official impasse. At least the trains are still running -- even if there was a stabbing this morning.
-- Chuck Bennett
The whole re-vote idea on that transit contract doesn’t seem that hot.
The few union chairman, shop stewards, and the like I spoke today described it as unrealistic. The union isn’t commenting. MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow isn’t commenting, other than, “That’s their business not mine. They run their own union.”
And, Barry Feinstein, chairman of the New York City Transit Committee, who spent an unusual 15 minutes entertaining reporters questions said:
“The rejected offer is a rejected offer. In order there to be an appropriate ability to accept the offer we would have to make it again. I don’t think that question has come under consideration by the MTA, so it would seem to be academic today because there is no indication from the union that they have an interest in re-voting, or what the MTA posture would be if they did decide to re-vote. ...
... I thought they should re-vote it immediately upon the rejection by seven votes and 10,000 people not having voted. I thought that’s what should have been done then. ...
... It would seem to me as a former labor leader that if I didn’t want to re-vote a contract than it wouldn’t matter what petitions I got, that’s not the way they plan to do their business. At this point their decision is they want to go back to bargaining table.”
-- Chuck Bennett
All tracks, it seems with the MTA-TWU contract problem, end with the Public Employment Relations Board.
James Edgar, executive director of PERB, told The Tracker where the process is so far.
Just one man, Richard A. Curreri, the director of the office of conciliation, is weighing the MTA’s request for binding arbitration. He doesn’t have a timeline or any kind of deadline to decide, according to Edgar. Curreri’s also the man who mediated that rejected post-strike contract.
He’s 53, from Voorheesville and has worked at PERB for 27 years. He’s also the guy who mediated the 1998 teachers strike in Yonkers.
If he decides there is an impasse, he will recommend binding arbitration to the PERB Board. At the present, the board consists of two men, Michael Cuevas, the chairman and John Mitchell. There is a spot for the third board member, and there is a nominee, but Edgar says its unlikely the state Senate will confirm him any time soon.
So what happens if the two-member board deadlocks? Edgar didn’t know for sure.
-- Chuck Bennett
Free newspapers weren’t the topic of the day this morning at the MTA monthly board meeting. Not like yesterday where unnamed free dailies were blamed on the growing trash problems in the subway.
Instead it was back to the contract.
As expected, the two ATU unions Local 1056 and 726 had their contract approved by the MTA board.
But as to what that means for the Transport Workers Union Local 100 is anyone’s guess. There are rumblings of a revote. There is the waiting game with the Public Employment Relations Board.
And there is hope of more negotiations. After all, Ed Watt, the TWU’s No. 2, and MTA negotiator Gary Dellaverson were spotted in a brief private talk in between meetings today.
Tom Kelly, the MTA’s top spokesman, refused to engage in “hypothetical” questions today. But Barry Feinstein — the MTA board members, chairman of the MTA Transit Committee, and a former labor leader himself — happily did.
He liked the idea of a re-vote but wasn’t sure what the MTA’s response would be. He also said binding arbitration was the answer in the law.
But, he summed up a lot of people’s feelings on the contract impasse the best when he said:
“We would hope they will come to the place where we can get this thing resolved. The public has had enough of this. And, obviously, the rank-and-file — now penalized by six days pay — have had more than enough of this.”
-- Chuck Bennett
Will anyone be at the protest outside New York City Transit’s health benefit office in Brooklyn today?
The anti-Toussaint dissidents in the TWU promised a big show of force to protest the 1.5% percent health insurance premiums in the rejected contract. It could be an indicator over how much support the Mooney, Stewart, Goodman coalition of the Committee for a Better Contract really has. These guys are probably all running in the union elections this year.
At least the unashamed communists of the League for the Revolutionary Party will be there.
E-mail me with details of the turnout: chuck.bennett@am-ny.com.
-- Chuck Bennett
Last night I ran into Marty Goodman -- the diehard socialist, TWU ‘dissident’ whose been a thorn in Toussaint’s side -- handing out leaflets to his fellow workers at the 51st St. station on the Lexington Line.
One of his fliers was for the Feb. 28 protest outside NYC Transit’s health benefit office. His own newsletter gives some insight into his and the other ‘dissidents’ thinking.
“A great way to begin to flex our muscles would be a massive labor protest at the MTA, so big it shuts down midtown. Community activists and students could join us. If properly organized, the MTA would be forced to worry, 'There’s such a huge turnout. What’ll they do next....strike again?'" Goodman wrote in his Contract Bulletin #8.
The turnout at the Feb. 28 protest will be a good indicator if the 'dissident' Committee for a Better Contract has actual clout among the rank-and-file.
Check out this great mini-profile on Goodman and the other ‘dissidents’ from the Daily News last month.
-- Chuck Bennett
More contract protests are coming.
The Committee for a Better Contract, the coalition of “dissident” anti-Toussaint union leaders like Ainsley Stewart, John Mooney and Marty Goodman, are planning a protest in front of the Transit Authority’s Health Benefit office in Brooklyn on Feb. 28.
“We will really be pushing things over the next several weeks,” Stewart told The Tracker. He said he will be bringing attention to the “raw deal” 1.5% health insurance premium in the rejected contract and the flat rate that TA supervisors pay.
Nothing new, but it is the first protest that the Committee for a Better Contract organized and if it attracts a big turnout it could show the dissidents have more clout than thought. The group's members will likely challenge Roger Toussaint for the union presidency this year.
Previously the group simply put out fliers and held its own informational meetings.
Meanwhile, Toussaint’s spokesman said there was no contract news today.
--Chuck Bennett
Forget about the snow, that darned transit union contract is up for a vote again.
On Thursday, the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1056, which represents bus drivers in Queens, will get their chance to vote on the post-strike contract.
“I think they’ve had time to digest everything to see what is real and what not real and this is best deal to come down,” Kenneth Broderick, president of ATU Local 1056 tells the Tracker.
“They will pass it through. ... Nobody liked the 1.5, including myself ... It's not something that is going to go away but it is there and hopefully we can negotiate that away in the next contract,” he said before another shop visit to sell the deal to his 1,700 members.
Already, the ATU 726 in Staten Island voted 979 to 81 to accept the contract — even with the 1.5% contibutions towards health insurance.
Of course, the 33,700-member Transport Workers Union Local 100, rejected that very same contract on Jan. 20.
-- Chuck Bennett
The transit union contract drama is like the Energizer bunny, it keeps going and going.
The Public Employment Relations Board just announced it is going to wait another two weeks before deciding if the contract impasse goes to binding arbitration. The MTA didn’t object.
The original deadline was midnight yesterday but PERB always said its deadlines are more like guidelines.
Meanwhile, at least the transit union and MTA are talking again.
-- Chuck Bennett
Today, I look at what the MTA could be getting from the city in the mayor’s proposed budget. Predictably, transit advocates say it’s not enough.
And what will happen to the West Side of Manhattan and the 7 train extension without a football stadium for the Jets? Newsday’s Dan Janison takes a look a closer look.
“It’s totally on tract,” Dan Doctoroff, deputy mayor for economic development said. But plenty of questions still surround the project.
And there are two interesting stories in the Daily News. A look at the subways of tomorrow. Anyone who’s been to Hong Kong has an idea.
On the transit union front, Peter Donohue asks the obvious, can’t they put up the rejected contract to a new vote?
Union officials repeatedly said no but no one knows if they will change their mind.
-- Chuck Bennett
The two big transit news items of the day:
First:
The union met for first the time last night to discuss its post-strike, post-rejected contract strategy for resisting binding arbitration.
Afterwards, to no one’s surprise, the union decided to go back to the negotiating table with the MTA.
Second:
Up at a hearing in Albany yesterday, Katie Lapp, the executive director of the MTA, hinted that those planned 2007 fare hikes may not be necessary after all if higher than expected tax revenues keep pouring in.
Said, Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign:
“Ms. Lapp said these projections were not certain and that any final fare decision would be made by the MTA board. But the Straphangers Campaign is very encouraged.
Hallelujah! This is good news for riders battered by fare hikes in both 2003 and 2005. The fare went from $1.50 to $2.00 in May 2003 and in 2005 the prices of 7-day and 30-day unlimited-ride MetroCards were raised.
Previously, the MTA had said it planned fare increases every two years, with the next one due early in 2007. The agency has budgeted $240 million from fare and toll increases for 2007. But this may not be needed.”
-- Chuck Bennett
Roger Toussaint, the president of the Transport Workers Union Local 100, called a meeting of all 43 executive board members Tuesday at union headquarters.
The embattled union chief has to unify his own board before figuring out how to wrangle a new contract that his members will accept out of the MTA.
