MTA Strike

[ryan]

New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com (http://www.nydailynews.com/) TWU: 8 is enough
By PETE DONOHUE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Friday, December 9th, 2005

Transit union leaders will call for triple eights - three straight years of approximately 8% raises - for their workers, the Daily News has learned.

The wage proposal - which would be the first by Transport Workers Union Local 100 - will be presented to the rank and file today for their approval at the Javits Center, sources told The News.

Thousands of bus and subway workers are expected to authorize their leadership to call a strike after their contract expires Thursday.

The two sides are far apart. Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials have proposed a two-year deal that called for a 3% raise in the first year and even less in the second year.

Further underscoring their differences, TWU Local 100 President Roger Toussaint told The News he would give workers today a startling example of how the MTA allegedly treats its workers.

Lewis Moore, whom a co-worker found unconscious on a work train in the Bronx last week, could have been taken to a nearby station to the south, Toussaint said. But that maneuver, from the middle track, would have clogged subway traffic - so the train was driven seven stations to the north, Toussaint charged.

"They put service before a stricken Transit Authority worker and they wouldn't have done that to a dog," Toussaint said. "If it was a dog on the tracks, they would have stopped service ... and spent whatever time was necessary to retrieve the dog."
Moore was dead by the time the train, which carries a huge crane, arrived at the E. 180th St. station. An initial autopsy was inconclusive. It's unclear, Toussaint said, whether Moore could have been saved.

But his allegations will clearly inflame passions today.

The TA has said that, due to track configurations, the E. 180th station was the nearest depot that the work train could pull into and be safely met by an ambulance crew.
Even if Moore's co-worker might have decided to take the train north, Toussaint said the command center has the final call over train movements.

In the MTA's wage proposal, the agency would give the TWU's more than 33,000 workers a 2% raise in the second year - but only if workers reduce the number of sick days they take.

The MTA faces large deficits in future years, officials say. But it has a year-end surplus of $1 billion right now.

Meanwhile, bus drivers and subway motormen followed their safety rules to the fullest extent yesterday, slowing service. The MTA confirmed there was a spike in the number of bus drivers who called in sick but said it was not significant and wouldn't speculate on the cause.

In the next few days, transit workers are expected to turn up the heat - using protests and perhaps harsher tactics that could disrupt service. The union also may demand that the MTA reach contract agreements with bus workers from five private companies that are being folded into the newly created MTA Bus Co.

[Ninjahedge]

What a load from all sides, as usual.


I know this sounds bad, but where do some of these guys come off thinking that they deserve a raise for doing nothing but being there for a long time?

Is it fair to expect this kind of thing? How proficient can you be at mopping a subway platform? How much experience is needed to become the Uber-Engineer?

Granted that the first few years are essential to various workers, and as they learn and become more proficient, everyone benefits, but at what point do they just become older?

The whole mindset of our workforce nowadays has lost touch with where it came from. It used to be that someone with more experience was valued on the talents they had because of it. Someone who did leatherwork for 20 years could probably do better than someone who just started. But we have taken the # of years away from the actual professions proficiency. We are rating employees not on what they can do, but merely on how long they have been there.


I know it is not far to simply cap people. Inflation is one of the things that should be taken into account, but I think it would probably be better fror everyone if the pay-tables were rethought. Low in the beginning, with a steeper rise to a capped top. Inflation slider and proficiency guidelines also being needed. Maybe like passing grades or something....



Oh, and it is kind of funny about the sick day thing. We just had ours "combined" with our vacation. WHOOPIE! Take two days away because too many people were getting "sick" on fridays... :P

[ryan]

I know this sounds bad, but where do some of these guys come off thinking that they deserve a raise for doing nothing but being there for a long time?

Cost of living increase Ninja. If you don't get at lease 2-3% a year, you should look elsewhere, as your actual salary (adjusted for inflation) is decreasing. That said, 24% over three years is asinine hyperbole.

I personally think the union is completely out of line in rejecting MTA proposals that employees pay a portion of healthcare and that retirement age be increased to 62. They do not deserve benefits that are not typically available in the private sector. I don't see anything justifying extra benefits as provided to military employees.

[krulltime]

Transit Strike Would Mean Four to a Car


By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and THOMAS J. LUECK
December 13, 2005

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, warning that a transit strike would seriously hurt the city's economy, announced yesterday that only cars with at least four people would be allowed to enter Manhattan south of 96th Street on weekday mornings if bus and subway workers walk off the job on Friday.

Starting times for city schools would be delayed by two hours to allow children time to get to school, and several streets, including much of Fifth and Madison Avenues, would be closed to all but emergency vehicles, according to an affidavit the city filed in court yesterday.

Wading forcefully into the labor dispute, Mr. Bloomberg said he hoped that a walkout would be averted and urged transit workers to follow the example of many municipal unions by exchanging productivity increases for bigger raises.

"A strike would not be good for the city, a strike would not be good for the union," Mr. Bloomberg said during an appearance in Manhattan. "It will cost an enormous amount of money in economic activity. There will be a lot of people who would lose their jobs during a strike."

In court papers filed in support of an injunction against a strike, slowdown or sickout, the Bloomberg administration estimated that the city's businesses would lose $440 million to $660 million per day in business activity during a transit strike.

Roger Toussaint, president of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, representing 33,700 subway and bus workers, said the mayor should not interfere in his union's talks with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, a state-controlled agency.

"Mayor Bloomberg is not part of these negotiations, and it should stay that way," Mr. Toussaint said as he entered the Grand Hyatt hotel for another negotiating session.

Last night, the authority altered its earlier proposal of a 3 percent increase one year and 2 percent the second, proposing instead a 27-month contract with a wage increase of 3 percent in the first year and another 3 percent effective March 16, 2007. In addition, instead of linking the second year of wage increases to reductions in sick leave use, as it proposed last week, it would impose new restrictions on sick leave unless workers reduce their use of sick leave to 2002 levels. The union did not immediately respond to the offer.

Earlier in the evening, Mr. Toussaint had restated his demand for an 8 percent wage increase in each of the next three years.

Local 100 has threatened to shut down the transit system if the two sides fail to reach a settlement by 12:01 a.m. Friday, when its contract expires.

"I'd still say there is a 50-50 possibility" of a strike, Mr. Toussaint said, "but there is still plenty of time to work things out."

In an appearance at Parsons the New School for Design, Mr. Bloomberg told reporters that the city would be firm in barring cars with fewer than four people from entering Manhattan south of 96th Street from 5 to 11 a.m. weekdays. He said the city had not completed enforcement details. "When we say cars coming in, we mean every car," he said. "One of the things we learned out of 9/11 was if you start making exceptions, it becomes unfair and unenforceable. And you're going to have four in a car the same way I'm going to have to."

After 9/11, cars carrying only one person were barred from entering Midtown or Lower Manhattan during weekday mornings to ease traffic jams caused by security checkpoints. The next year, when negotiations over the previous transit contract stalled, the city proposed the same ban on cars with fewer than four occupants, but it was not imposed.

Mr. Bloomberg said taxis would be allowed to carry multiple fares during a strike. He also urged New Yorkers who live far from their place of work to arrange to sleep closer.

"I would try to find somebody that's a friend that will let you use their couch," he said. "That would be the easiest thing to do."

As outlined in the affidavit, the contingency plan calls for closing a number of streets to all but emergency vehicles, including Fifth and Madison Avenues from 23rd to 96th Streets as well as 26th, 29th, 49th and 50th Streets from 1st to 12th Avenues. In Lower Manhattan, portions of Nassau, Rector and Vesey Streets and Maiden Lane would be closed.

Giving the two sides negotiating advice, Mr. Bloomberg said: "We've managed to come to good settlements with many of the city's unions based on productivity savings that got them significant increases in their compensation. I see no reason why the union and the M.T.A. couldn't do exactly the same thing."

As the deadline approaches, some commuter lines are making emergency plans. For example, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey plans to run PATH trains from the World Trade Center stop to 33rd Street in Midtown.

Although city schools would open later than usual, dismissal times would remain the same, the affidavit said.

Keith Kalb, a spokesman for Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein, said all school employees were expected to work.

"The school buses will continue to run, we will have supplies of food and fuel," he said. "We have plans to notify parents should circumstances change."

Randi Weingarten, president of the teachers' union, the United Federation of Teachers, criticized the chancellor's decision. "If there's a strike on Friday, they should close the schools," she said. "It's going to be chaos."

The union and the transportation authority are at loggerheads over wages and the authority's demand for a less generous pension and health plan for new workers. Union members' base pay averages $47,000 a year.

The authority says it needs concessions because it faces a $1 billion deficit beginning in 2009. The union insists that no concessions are warranted because the authority has a $1 billion surplus this year.

Yesterday, Justice Theodore T. Jones Jr. of State Supreme Court in Brooklyn scheduled a hearing for 10 a.m. today on a motion by lawyers for the state seeking a preliminary injunction against a strike or any attempt to disrupt transit service.

Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's office is seeking the injunction under the Taylor Law, which prohibits strikes by public employees. Lawyers for the city and the authority joined his effort.

Michael A. Cardozo, the city's corporation counsel, said the injunction was being sought to make it clear that "severe consequences would follow" if the transit workers went on strike.

Joseph F. Bruno, the city's commissioner of emergency management, said that in addition to business losses in the event of a strike, the city would lose $8 million to $12 million per day in tax revenue and would incur $10.1 million a day for police overtime. Separately, City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. estimated that the city would suffer $1.6 billion in economic losses during the first week of a strike.

Outside the courtroom, Arthur Z. Schwartz, a lawyer for the transit workers, said the attorney general should not be seeking an injunction until a strike was under way or imminent. He said there was no evidence that a walkout was imminent.

Mr. Toussaint said he was also concerned about the economic losses: "That would be even more reason to resolve this contract."

Preliminary injunctions or temporary restraining orders have been issued routinely during previous transit negotiations even though the Taylor Law imposes stiff financial penalties on striking workers.


Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

[Ninjahedge]

Cost of living increase Ninja. If you don't get at lease 2-3% a year, you should look elsewhere, as your actual salary (adjusted for inflation) is decreasing. That said, 24% over three years is asinine hyperbole.

I already addressed that. Why are they getting a raise OVER that when they are not providing anything more after a certain time? There is a limit to how productive an MTA worker can be. They cannot drive two trains, etc.

How is it fair in our society that the same service can be charged more for, at the same skill level, just because of the age of the employee?

I personally think the union is completely out of line in rejecting MTA proposals that employees pay a portion of healthcare and that retirement age be increased to 62. They do not deserve benefits that are not typically available in the private sector. I don't see anything justifying extra benefits as provided to military employees.


This is the thing that gets me. I know that they deserve to be paid, but when you look at government benefits such as retirement pensions and health care, and then compare that to the private sector you get a better idea of what is up. It is basically just another form of social security.

And the fact that they can wage a walkout that hurts other people? Screw that! Very frustrating.

All they are doing is hastening the implimentation of the automated systems.

[lofter1]

And the fact that they can wage a walkout that hurts other people?
Isn't a walkout illegal?

Wonder if Bloomberg will pull a Reagan by firing all the employees who walk (ala Air Traffic Controllers back in '81) ?

[TomAuch]

Isn't a walkout illegal?

Wonder if Bloomberg will pull a Reagan by firing all the employees who walk (ala Air Traffic Controllers back in '81) ?

That wouldn't surprise me, considering Bloomberg is no longer up for re-election and can't run for a third term. Also, isn't that Pataki's job, since isn't the MTA is a state agency?
...Anyway, I think that both sides are making unreasonable demands, and I really hope that they do not strike. A city of 8 million people will NOT do well if this occurs at the end of the week.

[lofter1]

I really hope that they do not strike. A city of 8 million people will NOT do well if this occurs at the end of the week.
Especially with the temperature in the 20's ... brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[ZippyTheChimp]

The 11 day subway and bus strike in April, 1980 was the biggest factor in women no longer commuting to work in high-heels, and the explosion of the athletic-shoe market.

[Ninjahedge]

Isn't a walkout illegal?

Wonder if Bloomberg will pull a Reagan by firing all the employees who walk (ala Air Traffic Controllers back in '81) ?


Yep, but that only gets a daily fine to the labor unions. If they are ready to put up with that, they can afford a few days of hell for the city.


One stupid thing, announcing that they may go on strike the day it runs out. On a Friday.

Why don't they just wait to go on strike at Christmas! i am sure that will REALLY hurt NYC and get them what they want!!!


Oh, this also reminds me of the sanitation workers strike in the summer about 7 years ago. That (literally) stank.


But then you get things like teachers strikes, which do hurt the people, but coming from people that have not gotten anything good in a long time!

Lumping all unions together as if they all stand for the same thing and have the same values to society is wrong, but that is how we think about things as humans. If it is a Union, it must be the same no matter who they represent!

[ryan]

I already addressed that.
I apologize, you're right. Has anyone heard the Unions's logic behind the 24% pay increase? Have they gone a few years without a cost of living increase? Otherwise, I have to agree with Ninja that any job has a salary cap. In the real world supply and demand sets that price, so again, why should the MTA be treated better than they would be in the private sector?

[stache]

I have a feeling it would wind up being more than 24% as the 8% would more than likely be compounded annually. I also think they want to strike on Friday as a slap in the face for the current weekend discounts.

[ryan]

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/logoprinter.gif (http://www.nytimes.com/)
December 13, 2005
The Man in the Middle

By SEWELL CHAN (http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=bylL&v1=SEWELL%20CHAN&fdq=19960101&td=sysdate&sort=newest&ac=SEWELL%20CHAN&inline=nyt-per)
His is the voice you hear over the loudspeaker, if it is working. His is the blue uniform you look for when the subway pulls into the station if you are confused about which train to take. His is the head that pops out of the conductor's cab, scanning the length of the platform as the train pulls out.
William Bailon, 28, is a conductor on the F, G and R lines and can list all their stations from memory, even while half asleep, but he is more excited when he tells you about his wife, Sandra, a legal secretary a few credits shy of her bachelor's degree; their two children, Adalee, 8, and Willie, 4; and the challenge of paying nearly $4,000 a year in Catholic school tuitions.

To speak to Mr. Bailon is to glimpse through the eyes of one subway conductor the concerns of 33,700 union members at New York City Transit, one of the city's largest civil-service work forces. Those concerns, while varying somewhat from worker to worker, share an essential core of issues like wages, health care and pensions and could determine whether the busiest transit system in the nation is shut down by a strike after the current three-year contract runs out Friday at 12:01 a.m.

The rising cost of living is the dominant concern for Mr. Bailon, who considers himself fortunate because his wife's family owns a six-unit building in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, allowing the couple to pay just $600 a month for their cramped two-bedroom apartment. "It's so expensive to live in New York," he said. "Everything is going up: the rent, the gas, the milk."

A Brooklyn native and a high school graduate, Mr. Bailon was hired in 2001 amid changes that have transformed the transit work force in recent decades: the shift from Irish and other European groups to blacks and Latinos, diminished opportunities for advancement in a bureaucracy that once routinely granted promotions chiefly by seniority, and growing anxiety as managers seek to eliminate the jobs of many of the 2,700 conductors and 3,300 station agents.

Mr. Bailon supports but is not active in his union, Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, and he did not attend the union's strike-authorization vote on Saturday because he was working. A Democrat, he did not bother to vote in the mayoral election. Most of what he knows about the Metropolitan Transportation Authority comes from tabloid newspapers left behind on the trains.

Mr. Bailon's base pay is $22.54 an hour, or about $47,000 a year. With overtime, he expects to make about $54,000 this year before taxes. More than a third of his paycheck goes to taxes, a pension contribution, union dues and a health-care co-payment.

New York City Transit pays for a standard health benefit package. Under a preferred-provider organization, G.H.I., Mr. Bailon pays a $15 co-payment for office visits and diagnostic tests. (Workers who select a health-maintenance organization generally have no co-payment.) He also pays $26.34 every two weeks for coverage for his wife, who is 27, and the two children.

Since 1994, nearly all transit workers with 25 years of experience have been eligible to collect a pension equal to half their pay at age 55. Mr. Bailon, who started at age 23, would be 48 after 25 years' service, and would have to wait 7 years for his pension. Sometimes, he thinks about trying to become a police officer. "It would mean taking a big pay cut," at least at first, he said.

He does not want to go on strike, but said, "If we have to, we will."
He could be affected if the authority expands one-person train operation, a disputed program that began in 1996. On one-person trains there is no conductor, only an operator who opens and shuts the doors and makes announcements. Mr. Bailon works on the G line every Thursday and Friday, 7:48 a.m. to 4:34 p.m. - a line the authority wants to make conductorless at all times.

He also has heard about the authority's proposal to have conductors stay on the train but leave their booths and instead walk through the cars, answering questions from passengers and looking for suspicious activity. He does not like the idea.

Mr. Bailon's mother came to New York from Puerto Rico, his father from Ecuador. After graduating from high school, he worked for two years for a livery car company, then took an $11-an-hour job with an air-conditioning equipment supplier.

In June 1999, he paid a $10 application fee and took a conductor's test, a civil service exam. The requirements included a high school diploma and passing a physical.

He did not get called back until early 2001. By that point, he had also taken the exam to become a police officer. Because he lacked enough college credits, he was offered a job as a school safety officer, which paid less than the starting pay for a conductor, around $14 an hour.

So, on April 16, 2001, he joined the authority and began conductor school, learning how circuit breakers work, what to do if a train door is jammed, and how to make a proper announcement. He learned the codes train crews use to summon assistance: 12-2 for smoke or fire, 12-6 for a derailment, 12-8 for an armed passenger, 12-9 for a body under the train, 12-11 for serious vandalism. He received on-the-job instruction at the Coney Island train yard.

He was assigned to the B Division, which includes all the train lines designated by a letter, except for the 42nd Street shuttle. His first assignment was as an "extra-extra," who floats among train lines and shifts.

Most hourly transit workers select their assignments about every six months, based on seniority. The most desirable assignments include a Saturday or Sunday as one of the two regular, consecutive days off.
Mr. Bailon's current assignment involves "R.D.O. relief," or filling in for colleagues during their regular days off.

Of New York City Transit's 48,000 employees, 70 percent are black, Hispanic, Asian-American or Native American and 17 percent are women. While Local 100 is the largest union, other unions represent employees like bus workers in Queens and Staten Island and engineers.

Asked to assess the job, Mr. Bailon said: "It makes your day go by fast. You don't have a boss right over you, looking every step of the way at what you're doing. You have time to yourself on the train."

The job can also be tedious, so Mr. Bailon has considered taking a test to become a train operator. "It can be boring sometimes," he said. "It's very repetitious: making announcements, turning keys, opening the doors. Every day for 25 years? That gets tiring. Maybe as a train operator it would be a little different."

Copyright 2005 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html)The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

[ryan]

This is ridiculously cheap healthcare.

[czsz]

This week would seem like a good time to invest in a bicycle, were there not a freezing rain storm coming Thursday night / Friday morning. Delightful.

Maybe we'll all be skating around? Envying the Lincoln Townsleighs on the UES?

[krulltime]

I cant believe I will have to walk to work with this cold! I have to walk about 33 blocks. Oh well... lets hope there is no strike.

[krulltime]

The 1980 Transit Strike:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/12/14/nyregion/14cnd-strike_1980_lg.jpg
During the city's last transit strike, in 1980, pedestrians and bicyclists trekked across the Brooklyn Bridge.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/12/14/nyregion/15strike.3.jpg
Joseph K. Keegan, a concourse transit officer at the 42nd Street station, stands near a closed concession.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/12/14/nyregion/15strike.4.jpg
Larry Reilly, president of Transportation Alternatives, directed bicycle traffic on 34th Street.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/12/14/nyregion/15strike.6.jpg
A visitor from Pennsylvania hails a cab at 33rd Street
and 8th Avenue.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/12/14/nyregion/15strike.5.jpg
Commuters walking on the Queensboro Bridge.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/12/14/nyregion/15strike.2.jpg
Mayor Edward I. Koch joined pedestrians on the Brooklyn Bridge in the 1980
strike, a gesture that Mr. Bloomberg said he would emulate.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/12/14/nyregion/15strike.1.jpg
An aerial view of the Brooklyn Bridge with commuters
walking during the 1980 transit strike.


Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

[krulltime]

As Negotiations Continue, City Prepares for Transit Strike


http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/12/14/nyregion/14strike_span.jpg
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg outlined the city's plans in case of a transit strike Wednesday at City Hall.


By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and JIM RUTENBERG
Published: December 15, 2005

With a contract deadline just after midnight tonight, representatives of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the transit workers' union met intermittently yesterday to stave off a strike as the agency's top negotiator warned that "we are not in a good place."

Although there was some small movement yesterday on the key issue of wages, the negotiator, Gary J. Dellaverson, said: "We should be closer now. There should be more progress, and I can't stand here and say that I'm comfortable with the negotiations where they stand at this instant."

Then he added, "I still remain hopeful."

He spoke just moments after Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced a comprehensive emergency plan to contend with a walkout. The plan would increase ferry service, restrict entry to much of Manhattan to high-occupancy vehicles, clear several major thoroughfares including Fifth Avenue of nearly all traffic but buses and emergency vehicles, and allow groups of riders to haggle with cabbies.

The union originally called for 8 percent annual raises, but late in the day it indicated that it would accept smaller increases if the authority agreed to decrease disciplinary actions against employees by 25 percent. The union did not say how much it was willing to trim its demand.

The day of stop-and-start negotiations was punctuated by the union's sharp criticism of the transportation authority, inconclusive court dealings, and last-minute efforts by suburban railroads to put their own emergency plans in place.

A strike by Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, which represents 33,700 subway and bus workers, would begin at 12:01 a.m. tomorrow. Walkouts by public employees are illegal under state law.

Besides wages, the two sides disagree over pensions, health insurance and safety. Mr. Dellaverson hinted that the authority's chairman, Peter S. Kalikow, might join the talks today; he did so at the last minute three years ago to reach a settlement.

Roger Toussaint, the president of Local 100, said in an interview last night that the authority was showing little flexibility and was forcing his union's back to the wall. He also denounced Mr. Bloomberg's efforts, including a lawsuit seeking huge fines, intended to pressure the union not to strike. He said the mayor had so angered union members that he made a strike more likely.

"He's gone way beyond the pale," he said. "It's Giuliani-like. It has all the earmarks of bullying, something that transit workers do not react well to." He said the chances of a walkout were 50-50.

"I have said that a settlement won't come from courts, injunctions or intimidation, " Mr. Toussaint said. "While we of course are mindful of the legal penalties our members face, we will not buckle in the face of these threats."

Later, after four and a half hours of off-again, on-again talks, the two sides broke for the night at 11 p.m. The union officials said the tone had improved slightly, because Lawrence G. Reuter, the president of New York City Transit, had joined the talks for the first time. Mr. Reuter pressed the union to set individual deadlines today for settling specific issues.

The city's emergency plan indicated how seriously the mayor is taking the possibility of a strike and how crippling officials believe a subway and bus stoppage would be for riders and the city's economy at the height of the holiday shopping season. "A strike would be more than just illegal and inconvenient," Mr. Bloomberg said. "It will threaten public safety and severely disrupt our city and its economy."

"There would be no winners in a strike," the mayor said. "And I speak for every New Yorker when I urge the T.W.U. to resolve the contract at the bargaining table."

Gov. George E. Pataki, before leaving for New Hampshire, made his most forceful comments yet to discourage a strike, warning of "dire consequences" and telling the union: "Don't even threaten a strike."

Arthur Z. Schwartz, a lawyer for the union, said the two sides were supposed to attend a Brooklyn court hearing on the city's request for fines; the city asked that on the first day, the union be fined $1 million and individual workers $25,000, and that the fines be doubled each successive day.

Mr. Schwartz said he was told that no hearing was warranted because the city corporation counsel's office, which filed the lawsuit on Tuesday, had not supplied the papers the judge needed to decide the matter.

"What happened yesterday in the filing of that lawsuit is simply an effort by the mayor and an effort by the corporation counsel to interfere with negotiations to try to intimidate the members of Local 100," Mr. Schwartz said. "It is an utterly baseless lawsuit designed only to gather headlines."

Michael A. Cardozo, the corporation counsel, said the city intended to go ahead with the suit, but was waiting to see the union's next moves.

"Our lawsuit is designed to protect the security of the city and to recover damages that the city would suffer in the event there is a strike," he said.

In a separate lawsuit, the state was granted an injunction on Tuesday barring a transit strike or slowdown.

Top negotiators from the two sides have bargained little in recent days - three hours on Monday and 75 minutes on Tuesday. Mr. Dellaverson said he was sure the pace would pick up.

"Have we been fully engaged? Yes," Mr. Dellaverson said. "Have there been enough meetings to adequately bridge the gap? No."

Going into yesterday, the authority had offered two raises of 3 percent in a 27-month contract. On pensions, the authority wants to raise the retirement age for newly hired employees to 62 after 30 years of service, while the union wants to lower it to age 50 after 20 years of service. At present, transit workers can retire at age 55 after 25 years of work, with a pension equal to half their annual pay; the average is $55,000, including overtime.

Many transit workers have said the authority's offer barely matches inflation in a year that the authority had a $1 billion surplus. The authority counters that it will have a $800 million deficit beginning in 2008. The authority's board voted yesterday to spend much of that surplus, angering the union because it allocated none of the surplus to wages.

Mr. Dellaverson said that the union's proposal, with its lower pension age, 8 percent raises, and improved health coverage, would cost the authority $550 million extra a year.

"The M.T.A. proposal is targeted at those long-term challenges that we and other employers are confronting," Mr. Dellaverson said. "It would be easy but wrong to ignore that."

Criticizing the authority's demand for concessions on pensions, Mr. Toussaint said, " The M.T.A. is misplaced to believe that the T.W.U. will be responsible for a historic decline or reversal for the labor movement with respect to pensions."

Complicating the talks, the union has threatened to strike unless the authority also reaches a contract for 2,200 workers at five private bus lines that the authority is taking over. Those workers have been without a contract for nearly three years.

With no control over the M.T.A., a state entity, the city can do little more than wait and plan for the worst, Mr. Bloomberg acknowledged. The city's plan was largely devised to reduce car traffic as much as possible through extensive car pooling, ride sharing, walking or bicycling.

Mr. Bloomberg said the city would close several major Midtown streets to all but emergency vehicles, private buses, commuter vans and motorcycles during workdays and would shut approaches to Manhattan south of 96th Street to all cars carrying fewer than four people during the morning rush. Car-pooling sites would be set up to allow drivers to pick up passengers to meet the limit. Taxicabs will be allowed to carry multiple fares, and will be able to charge based on a zone system. Cabdrivers will be allowed to charge up to $10 to start and up to $5 for each zone covered during the trip.

But the mayor said the best bet was to work from home if possible and, if not, to ride a bike or walk.

"All of us should be prepared to deal with significant crowding and delays, and all of us should do our best to be patient and courteous," he said. "By working together and looking out for each other we'll be able to weather the storm."

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/12/14/nyregion/14strike.jpg
Roger Toussaint, president of
Local 100 of the Transport
Workers Union, tore up a copy of a
city lawsuit seeking stiff fines.


Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

[lofter1]

I belong to a number of unions; despite a lack of a finalized new contract I and my fellow union members have often continued to work when contracts expired. Once the new contract is ironed out the pay / benefits are retro-active, so things work out in the long run. Strikes (from my personal experience) in this day and age really offer no solution to workers, as time of wages lost are never made up. As a strategy the threat of strike / walk out is invaluable, but the choice to actually strike must be very well considered.

I believe and support unions, but for the TWU to walk on day one is a huge disservice to the public -- the people they serve and who pay their salaries.

While the MTA must share some blame in how this is playing out I have noticed slow-downs in subway service throughout this week.

A walk-out / slow-down could prove to be a huge PR / strategic mistake on the part of the TWU.

Finally, who is the brilliant gang of mediators / negotiators who allowed a contract to have an end date of mid-December? That just creates a recipe for disaster, as we're seeing played out now.

[Ninjahedge]

"I have said that a settlement won't come from courts, injunctions or intimidation, " Mr. Toussaint said.


Pardon me, but isn't the threat of a strike INTIMIDATION?

The union is looking for someone to blame the strike on so they do not bear the brunt of public distain. But i don't think they are in much of a position to avoid that, considering the individual mentioned in the other piece earning $44K a year after only a few years on the job was earning more than I was after 2 years as an engineer with a meritous Ivy League graduate degree! (It is also higher than the average in the profession for that time... so...)

I think the MTA workers union is only hastening their own demise and the increased push for automated train systems.

If I were them, I would look for a way to guarantee tenure for those currently working rather than quibbling about raises that few can see the merit in.

[ryan]

I support unions when they protect workers' rights and working conditions (I think there's a lot of merit to the complaints of terrible, unsanitary conditions for MTA workers. The budget surplus should absolutely have been spent on upgrading stations - including MTA workers' areas - and not pissed away on the meaningless "holiday bonus" pr gimmick). However, as best I can tell in this case, the union is leveraging the strike (threat or reality) just to horn in on the budget surplus. Seems like simple greed. I haven't read any justification for the MTA workers demanding free benefits, lowered retirement ages and fairytale raises aside from they simply think they should have them.

They deserve good pay and benefits, not extraordinary, better-than-the-private-sector pay and benefits. If I have to walk to midtown from Brooklyn in freezing rain tomorrow I'm going to tell off any picketing MTA worker I see. (and I'm usually just about socialist on these issues)

[lofter1]

If THIS \/ happens ... omg:

35 pct of cabbies may stay home for transit strike

December 15, 2005

http://www.newyorkology.com/archives/2005/12/35_pct_of_cabbi.html

If there is a subway and bus strike in New York City on Friday, about 35 percent of the city's taxi drivers may also stay home rather than deal with the stress and new, complicated fare system, the director of the Taxi Workers Alliance told NewYorkology.

Bhairavi Desai said her organization, which represents about 7,000 of the city's 12,787 licensed cabbies, is encouraging drivers not to work during a strike in part because they could ultimately lose their operating licenses if they charge the wrong fares under the city's Strike Contingency Plan (http://nyc.gov/html/transitinfo/html/home.shtml) announced Wednesday.

"It's going to be incredibly stressful," she said. "And at a time of utter chaos, they've come up with this zone system" that neither passengers nor drivers are likely to easily understand.

Instead of a regular metered-fare, the zone system (http://nyc.gov/html/transitinfo/pdfs/Taxi_Zones_20051214.pdf), created by the city without input from the Taxi Workers Alliance, would charge each passenger $10 initially and $5 each time the cab passes into a new zone during the trip. Cabbies would also be allowed to pick up multiple passengers along the way.

[stache]

Not pretty!

[Ninjahedge]

News so far:

Queens bus lines (private lines being aquired by the MTA) will be first. Nice of them to leave people stranded at work, eh?

Butt munchers.

[stache]

Looks like we have a reprieve for the most part untill late Monday night. Yay for me as I have to go to 125th St. Monday. :)

[ZippyTheChimp]

December 18, 2005

Transit Union Tries New Tack on Pensions

By SEWELL CHAN and STEVEN GREENHOUSE

In a move that could alter the shape of its deadlocked contract negotiations, the transit workers' union intends to file a complaint with a state labor board today, asserting that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority cannot legally insist that the union accept less generous pensions for future subway and bus workers.

The union, Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, said yesterday that it would ask the state's Public Employment Relations Board to seek a court order barring the authority from making pension demands part of its final offer for a new contract. The authority, in response, dismissed the legal action as a public-relations ploy and asserted that both sides had traditionally discussed pensions in their contract talks.

Neither side moved from its position yesterday, although top negotiators met for about four hours before taking an afternoon recess. Talks resumed and then recessed once again about 11 p.m.

If the state board were to rule in the union's favor on the pension issue - an outcome the authority insisted is doubtful - it could compel the authority to drop its demand for a worse pension plan for future transit workers. That demand, both sides say, is the main obstacle to a settlement.

The dispute added a new wrinkle to the brinkmanship that has characterized the last several days. The authority has said that it has made its final offer. The union has set a new strike deadline of 12:01 a.m. Tuesday for the whole transit system and another for 12:01 a.m. tomorrow at two private bus companies in Queens that are being transferred to the authority's control. Union officials said yesterday that they had asked the authority to put its best and final offer on the table by 9 p.m. Monday so the union's executive board would have time to consider it before the Tuesday deadline.

The union's president, Roger Toussaint, and the authority's chairman, Peter S. Kalikow, did not attend the talks yesterday, held at the Grand Hyatt hotel. Each side offered competing interpretations of the day's events to the journalists who have transformed hotel meeting rooms into a round-the-clock encampment.

At 3:10 p.m., the authority's chief negotiator, Gary J. Dellaverson, said he was optimistic. "We're negotiating," he said. "The talks have not broken off. At this stage of the game, I would say talking is progress."

Three hours later, Ed Watt, the union's secretary-treasurer, was less sanguine during a brief appearance. "Both sides are in what seem to be intractable positions," he said. "As a result, these negotiations have only been exploratory and, again, there has been no progress."

A lawyer for the union, Walter M. Meginniss Jr., disclosed the union's plan to file a legal action. In an interview, he argued that the state's Taylor Law, which governs relations between government employers and public-sector workers, permits pensions to be discussed in a contract negotiation but bars either side from insisting on pension changes as part of its final offer.

The authority wants to require that new employees not be eligible for a full pension until age 62, compared with age 55 for most current employees. The pension changes would require approval by the Legislature. The authority, which technically may not directly discuss pensions at the bargaining table, is in essence demanding that the union agree to jointly petition the Legislature for those changes.

Such petitions, known as joint-support legislation, are a "permissive" subject of collective bargaining under the law, Mr. Meginniss said, but they are not a mandatory subject like salaries, wages and hours - the basic terms and conditions of employment.

"You can always push and push for a permissive subject, and the other side says no," he said. "What you can't do is go and take the last step - 'We refuse to reach an agreement unless you give in on this permissive subject.' "

Mr. Meginniss said a 1975 decision by the board, in a contract negotiation involving the City of New Rochelle and Local 273 of the International Association of Fire Fighters, supported Local 100's argument. In that decision, the board ruled that both sides "improperly insisted" that nonmandatory terms be included in a new contract.

In an interview, Mr. Dellaverson, said, "Everything that we're doing in the bargaining is totally appropriate and completely consistent with the history of negotiations between the T.W.U., Local 100, and the M.T.A."

Mr. Dellaverson, who is a lawyer, said the union's argument would apply only if either side were asking the state board to refer the dispute to a panel of impartial arbitrators. For transit workers, police officers and firefighters, the Taylor Law requires arbitration if either side files a petition stating that there is an impasse and the board then orders mediation that fails.

Mr. Dellaverson said that neither side had declared an impasse and said of the union's legal complaint, "This is a one-day press tactic, but it's not meaningful."

Mr. Meginniss said he disagreed with Mr. Dellaverson. "His view is that you only reach impasse when you go to an arbitration panel, and that's not true," Mr. Meginniss said. "When you take the position that you will not sign a contract unless it has a permissive subject in it, you are violating the Taylor Law. And that is the position they are taking."

It is not clear how the board will rule, and more important, whether it will rule in time to make a difference. The union has vowed to begin a strike at Jamaica Buses and the Triboro Coach Corporation tomorrow and a general subway and bus strike on Tuesday if no accord is reached.

Gov. George E. Pataki appointed the board's chairman, Michael R. Cuevas, and its other member, John T. Mitchell; a third seat is vacant.

Mr. Pataki, a Republican, has strongly supported the authority's stance in the talks. He has called the contract fair, urged the union to accept it and warned that a strike would be illegal and could result in steep fines.

Mr. Watt, the union official, said the governor's stance was hypocritical. "While the governor is wagging his finger at transit workers, that they shouldn't break the Taylor Law, his own agency, the M.T.A., is violating the Taylor Law," Mr. Watt said in an interview.

Bruce C. McIver, who has overseen labor relations for the city and the authority, said: "This is really an attempt by the union to get the high ground in terms of public perception. The M.T.A. is saying, 'We've made an offer, and we're not going to improve it no matter what.' So the union is trying to create an environment in which the M.T.A. will feel pressure to get the item off the table."

Union leaders have voiced confidence that the Democratic-controlled State Assembly, which is friendly to labor, would not do the authority's bidding and enact a worse pension plan, especially because the city's top labor leaders have rallied behind the transit workers.

On Thursday night, just before the first strike deadline, the presidents of the city's Central Labor Council, the United Federation of Teachers, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association and 1199, the giant health-care union, backed Mr. Toussaint's effort to maintain current benefits.

Riders continued yesterday to follow the talks with a mixture of anxiety and curiosity.

"I thought for sure they were going to strike on Friday," said Aubrey Hairston, 25, a musician who lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. "I was so sure, and it didn't happen, so I am much more up in the air about Tuesday. I pray it doesn't happen."

Damien Cave and Michael S. Schmidt contributed reporting for this article.

* Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

[TomAuch]

I don't support the union OR the MTA in this. The MTA is unfairly hoarding their surplus money and giving out for holdiday discounts that aren't necessarily needed, while the union is asking for the pension eligibility to be at 50 and an 8% per year pay increase. Those demands sound nice, but they are too generous. However, I don't think that the pension age should be raised to 62. How about keeping it at 55, or if not, then raise it to 58 or 59 if there really is a pension problem?

Meanwhile, I've been watching the news within the last hour and now there's talk of Metro North workers going on strike! This is going to hurt Westchester, Putnam, and Dutchess County residents, as well as those in Fairfield County and New Haven County, CT. (although I'm not sure if CT people if we hurt since I'm sure that the inter-state issue may make it harder to wage a strike.)

[ZippyTheChimp]

December 20, 2005

Union Rejects Contract Offer, M.T.A. Reports

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and SEWELL CHAN

Leaders of the transit workers' union rejected the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's latest contract offer last night, management officials said, as the city braced for the possibility of a transit strike for the first time in a quarter-century.

With just an hour before a strike deadline of 12:01 a.m. today, Tom Kelly, an authority spokesman, said it had put "a fair offer on the negotiating table."

"Unfortunately, that offer has been rejected by the Transport Workers Union, and they have advised us that they were going - that they are going - to leave the building, and going to the union hall," Mr. Kelly said. "The M.T.A. remains ready to continue negotiations." He offered no further details, and union officials would not discuss the developments as they headed into their private strategy session.

The developments capped a day of intense negotiations between the two pivotal figures in the talks - Peter S. Kalikow, the authority's chairman, and Roger Toussaint, president of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union - who bargained face to face yesterday for the first time since Friday, meeting for nearly 12 hours at the Grand Hyatt hotel next to Grand Central Terminal.

Stepping up the pressure, the transit union began a strike yesterday morning against two Queens bus lines, stranding 57,000 passengers in what the union portrayed as a prelude to a strike that would shut down the nation's largest transit system.

The union originally threatened to shut down the whole system on Friday, but pushed back the deadline to today, seemingly to increase its leverage by warning of a walkout the week before Christmas, one of the busiest weeks for retailers. The state's Taylor Law prohibits strikes by public employees and carries penalties of two days' pay for each day on strike.

As a result of all the threats and deadlines, many New Yorkers for the second straight week felt wildly off balance, straining to figure out how their children would get to school and how they would get to work or to doctors' appointments.

Some New Yorkers backed the transit workers, some saw them as greedy lawbreakers, and some said that both sides in the negotiations deserved the public's disdain.

Warning that a strike would be illegal, Gov. George E. Pataki and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg stepped up their campaign to pressure the union, with the mayor saying that a strike would be "reprehensible."

"The city and state and courts - everybody is going to enforce the law, and anybody that thinks that they can just go break the law is sadly mistaken," Mr. Bloomberg said. "There can be no winners in a strike - it's not going to force the M.T.A. to make a settlement. If anything, it's going to probably dig them in."

At rallies outside the governor's office and in Queens alongside the striking bus workers, Mr. Toussaint and many union members trumpeted their defiance, insisting that it was more important to obtain what they viewed as a just contract than to obey the law barring strikes. Mr. Toussaint said the union would not push back its strike deadline as it did on Friday.

"Unless there is substantial movement by the authority, trains and buses will come to a halt as of midnight tonight," he said at a rally for the bus workers in East Elmhurst, Queens.

With anger in his voice, he added, "We maintain, as we have in the past week, that threats are not going to produce a contract and are not going to work against us. And Governor Pataki should think carefully before he wags his finger at transit workers on television. We transit workers are accustomed to being threatened by transit managers, but we do not appreciate being threatened on public television."

City officials have prepared an emergency plan that would increase ferry service, allow taxis to pick up multiple fares, close several streets to traffic except for buses and emergency vehicles, and prohibit cars with fewer than four passengers from entering Manhattan below 96th Street during the morning rush. The city, alert to the threat of sabotage, is also deploying hundreds of police officers to secure subway entrances in the event of a walkout.

The main obstacle to an agreement, both sides say, is the authority's demand that the union, which represents 33,700 subway and bus workers, agree to pension plan that raises the retirement age for future transit workers to 62, up from 55 for current workers.

The transportation authority asserts that it needs to bring its soaring pension costs under control to stave off future deficits. But union leaders vow that they will not sell out future transit workers by saddling them with lesser benefits.

One idea being considered, one person on the authority's side said, was to drop the authority's demand to raise the retirement age for pension eligibility for new workers and instead have all transit workers contribute more toward their pensions.

Earlier yesterday, Mr. Toussaint hinted at some movement in the talks, saying that the union would reduce its wage demands to 6 percent a year, from 8 percent a year, if the authority promised to reduce the number of disciplinary actions brought against transit workers. The authority has offered raises of 3 percent a year for three years.

The union began its strike against two Queens bus lines, Jamaica Buses Inc. and Triboro Coach Corporation, in the hope of pressuring the authority to reach an overall settlement. The walkout angered many Queens commuters and caused many to squeeze into vans and taxis.

The 707 workers at the two bus companies have been without a contract for 33 months. The authority is taking control of those two companies and five others, and union officials assert that the strike against the companies is not prohibited because the authority has not taken full control of them.

The Public Employment Relations Board, a state body that oversees labor relations for government employees, did not issue a decision yesterday in response to a complaint that the union filed on Sunday, asserting that the authority had violated state law by including its pension demands as part of what it said was its final offer. The union has asked the labor board to seek an injunction ordering the authority to drop its pension demand.

At 9:15 p.m. yesterday, the board's executive director, James R. Edgar, said the board had not yet received the authority's legal papers replying to the union.

Many New Yorkers said a strike would disrupt their lives. Doreen Simon, 55, who lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and works as a housekeeper in Riverdale, the Bronx, said, "I'm going to stay home. What can I do? I can't take a cab to the Bronx. It's going to hurt."

The union has repeatedly urged Mr. Pataki to join the talks, trying to put the onus on him if there is a walkout. But the governor, like the mayor, says that the professionals at the authority should handle the talks.

Mr. Bloomberg said that a walkout would hurt many workers in the hotel, restaurant and garment industries who earn less than the transit workers. The transit workers average $55,000 a year with overtime.

"You've got people making $50,000 and $60,000 a year - are keeping the people who are making $20,000 and $30,000 a year from being able to earn a living," Mr. Bloomberg said. "That's just not acceptable."

Workers at the Metro-North Railroad and Long Island Rail Road are not expected to strike in support of transit workers. Anthony J. Bottalico, the chairman of the union that represents Metro-North engineers, conductors and rail-traffic controllers, said none of his members planned to strike.

However, two other unions, which represent Metro-North ticket collectors and track workers, have vowed to show solidarity with Local 100 by refusing to cross any picket lines, and they could conceivably delay, though not disrupt, regular train service.

* Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

[Schadenfrau]

I hope the union does stike.

Instead of reflexively howling about the transit workers' union, maybe people should turn their sites to the MTA, who have made their wealth on all of our backs.

[ryan]

You think the union demands for 8% raises, age 50 retirements & free healthcare are reasonable?

From where I stand it seems like both sides are greedy.

[TomAuch]

Four words: We are so f*cked
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

December 20, 2005
Transit Union Calls for Strike in Divided Vote
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and SEWELL CHAN

Leaders of the transit workers' union rejected the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's latest contract offer last night, and voted to call a strike shortly after 1 a.m., according to two members of the union's executive board. But the vote to call a strike was not unanimous, and so for at least a half an hour after the formal vote, union leaders remained divided on whether to actually proceed with the walkout.

Adding to the confusion, the president of the Transport Workers Union of America, the parent union for the city's transit workers, told the local executive board he could not support a strike, the two members said. They said that the president, Michael T. O'Brien, said he believed that the transportation authority might change its offer, and he urged the union to re-enter the talks.

A transit strike, the city's first in a quarter century, would prevent people from going to work, cause hundreds of millions of dollars in economic damage and upend the life of the city in the week before Christmas.

The vote by the union board came after a 12-hour round of intense negotiations between the two pivotal figures in the talks - Peter S. Kalikow, the transportation authority's chairman, and Roger Toussaint, president of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union - who bargained face-to-face yesterday for the first time since Friday.

But with just an hour to go before the deadline, Tom Kelly, an authority spokesman, said that efforts to settle the dispute had faltered after the union turned down what he called "a fair offer."

"Unfortunately, that offer has been rejected by the Transport Workers Union, and they have advised us that they were going - that they are going - to leave the building, and going to the union hall," Mr. Kelly said. "The M.T.A. remains ready to continue negotiations." Union officials would not discuss the developments as they headed into their private strategy session.

The developments capped a day in which the transit union stepped up the pressure by beginning a strike yesterday morning against two Queens bus lines, stranding about 57,000 passengers in what the union portrayed as a prelude to a strike that would shut down the nation's largest transit system.

The union first threatened to shut down the whole system on Friday, but pushed back the deadline to today, seemingly to increase its leverage by warning of a walkout the week before Christmas, one of the busiest weeks for retailers. The state's Taylor Law prohibits strikes by public employees and carries penalties of two days' pay for each day on strike.

As a result of all the threats and deadlines, many New Yorkers for the second straight week felt wildly off balance, straining to figure out how their children would get to school and how they would get to work or to doctors' appointments.

Some New Yorkers backed the transit workers, some saw them as greedy lawbreakers, and some said that both sides in the negotiations deserved the public's disdain.

Warning that a strike would be illegal, Gov. George E. Pataki and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg stepped up their campaign to pressure the union, with the mayor saying that a strike would be "reprehensible."

"The city and state and courts - everybody is going to enforce the law, and anybody that thinks that they can just go break the law is sadly mistaken," Mr. Bloomberg said. "There can be no winners in a strike - it's not going to force the M.T.A. to make a settlement. If anything, it's going to probably dig them in."

At rallies outside the governor's office and in Queens alongside the striking bus workers, Mr. Toussaint and many union members trumpeted their defiance, insisting that it was more important to obtain what they viewed as a just contract than to obey the law barring strikes.

"Unless there is substantial movement by the authority, trains and buses will come to a halt as of midnight tonight," he said at a rally for the bus workers in East Elmhurst, Queens.

With anger in his voice, he added, "We maintain, as we have in the past week, that threats are not going to produce a contract and are not going to work against us." Later, at a rally outside the governor's office in Manhattan, he sought to justify a walkout by saying, "There's a calling that is higher than the law, and that's the calling of justice."

City officials have prepared an emergency plan that would increase ferry service, allow taxis to pick up multiple fares, close several streets to traffic except for buses and emergency vehicles, and prohibit cars with fewer than four passengers from entering Manhattan below 96th Street during the morning rush. The city is also deploying hundreds of police officers to secure subway entrances in the event of a walkout.

The transportation authority's 11th-hour offer included a 3 percent raise in the first year, 4 percent in the second year and 3.5 percent in the third year of a new contract, representatives on both sides said. Before yesterday, it was offering 3 percent a year for three straight years.

The authority dropped its demand to raise the retirement age for a full pension to 62 for new employees, up from 55 for current employees. But the authority proposed that all future transit workers pay 6 percent of their wages toward their pensions, up from the 2 percent that current workers pay.

The transportation authority asserts that it needs to bring its soaring pension costs under control to stave off future deficits. But union leaders vow that they will not sell out future transit workers by saddling them with lesser benefits.

Earlier yesterday, Mr. Toussaint hinted at some movement in the talks at the Grand Hyatt hotel, saying that the union would reduce its wage demands to 6 percent a year, from 8 percent a year, if the authority promised to reduce the number of disciplinary actions brought against transit workers. The authority has offered raises of 3 percent a year for three years.

The union began its strike against two Queens bus lines, Jamaica Buses Inc. and Triboro Coach Corporation, in the hope of pressuring the authority to reach an overall settlement. The walkout angered many Queens commuters and caused many to squeeze into vans and taxis.

The 707 workers at the two bus companies have been without a contract for 33 months. The authority is taking control of those two companies and five others, and union officials assert that the strike against the companies is not prohibited because the authority has not taken full control of them.

The Public Employment Relations Board, a state body that oversees labor relations for government employees, did not issue a decision yesterday in response to a complaint that the union filed on Sunday, asserting that the authority had violated state law by including its pension demands as part of what it said was its final offer. The union has asked the labor board to seek an injunction ordering the authority to drop its pension demand.

At 9:15 p.m. yesterday, the board's executive director, James R. Edgar, said the board had not yet received the authority's legal papers replying to the union.

Many New Yorkers said a strike would disrupt their lives. Doreen Simon, 55, who lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and works as a housekeeper in Riverdale, the Bronx, said, "I'm going to stay home. What can I do? I can't take a cab to the Bronx. It's going to hurt."

The union has repeatedly urged Mr. Pataki to join the talks, trying to put the onus on him if there is a walkout. But the governor, like the mayor, says that the professionals at the authority should handle the talks.

Workers at the Metro-North Railroad and Long Island Rail Road are not expected to strike in support of transit workers. Anthony J. Bottalico, the chairman of the union that represents Metro-North engineers, conductors and rail-traffic controllers, said none of his members planned to strike.

However, two other unions, which represent Metro-North ticket collectors and track workers, have vowed to show solidarity with Local 100 by refusing to cross picket lines, and they could conceivably delay, though not disrupt, regular train service.

December 20, 2005
Transit Union Calls for Strike in Divided Vote
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and SEWELL CHAN

Leaders of the transit workers' union rejected the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's latest contract offer last night, and voted to call a strike shortly after 1 a.m., according to two members of the union's executive board. But the vote to call a strike was not unanimous, and so for at least a half an hour after the formal vote, union leaders remained divided on whether to actually proceed with the walkout.

Adding to the confusion, the president of the Transport Workers Union of America, the parent union for the city's transit workers, told the local executive board he could not support a strike, the two members said. They said that the president, Michael T. O'Brien, said he believed that the transportation authority might change its offer, and he urged the union to re-enter the talks.

A transit strike, the city's first in a quarter century, would prevent people from going to work, cause hundreds of millions of dollars in economic damage and upend the life of the city in the week before Christmas.

The vote by the union board came after a 12-hour round of intense negotiations between the two pivotal figures in the talks - Peter S. Kalikow, the transportation authority's chairman, and Roger Toussaint, president of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union - who bargained face-to-face yesterday for the first time since Friday.

But with just an hour to go before the deadline, Tom Kelly, an authority spokesman, said that efforts to settle the dispute had faltered after the union turned down what he called "a fair offer."

"Unfortunately, that offer has been rejected by the Transport Workers Union, and they have advised us that they were going - that they are going - to leave the building, and going to the union hall," Mr. Kelly said. "The M.T.A. remains ready to continue negotiations." Union officials would not discuss the developments as they headed into their private strategy session.

The developments capped a day in which the transit union stepped up the pressure by beginning a strike yesterday morning against two Queens bus lines, stranding about 57,000 passengers in what the union portrayed as a prelude to a strike that would shut down the nation's largest transit system.

The union first threatened to shut down the whole system on Friday, but pushed back the deadline to today, seemingly to increase its leverage by warning of a walkout the week before Christmas, one of the busiest weeks for retailers. The state's Taylor Law prohibits strikes by public employees and carries penalties of two days' pay for each day on strike.

As a result of all the threats and deadlines, many New Yorkers for the second straight week felt wildly off balance, straining to figure out how their children would get to school and how they would get to work or to doctors' appointments.

Some New Yorkers backed the transit workers, some saw them as greedy lawbreakers, and some said that both sides in the negotiations deserved the public's disdain.

Warning that a strike would be illegal, Gov. George E. Pataki and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg stepped up their campaign to pressure the union, with the mayor saying that a strike would be "reprehensible."

"The city and state and courts - everybody is going to enforce the law, and anybody that thinks that they can just go break the law is sadly mistaken," Mr. Bloomberg said. "There can be no winners in a strike - it's not going to force the M.T.A. to make a settlement. If anything, it's going to probably dig them in."

At rallies outside the governor's office and in Queens alongside the striking bus workers, Mr. Toussaint and many union members trumpeted their defiance, insisting that it was more important to obtain what they viewed as a just contract than to obey the law barring strikes.

"Unless there is substantial movement by the authority, trains and buses will come to a halt as of midnight tonight," he said at a rally for the bus workers in East Elmhurst, Queens.

With anger in his voice, he added, "We maintain, as we have in the past week, that threats are not going to produce a contract and are not going to work against us." Later, at a rally outside the governor's office in Manhattan, he sought to justify a walkout by saying, "There's a calling that is higher than the law, and that's the calling of justice."

City officials have prepared an emergency plan that would increase ferry service, allow taxis to pick up multiple fares, close several streets to traffic except for buses and emergency vehicles, and prohibit cars with fewer than four passengers from entering Manhattan below 96th Street during the morning rush. The city is also deploying hundreds of police officers to secure subway entrances in the event of a walkout.

The transportation authority's 11th-hour offer included a 3 percent raise in the first year, 4 percent in the second year and 3.5 percent in the third year of a new contract, representatives on both sides said. Before yesterday, it was offering 3 percent a year for three straight years.

The authority dropped its demand to raise the retirement age for a full pension to 62 for new employees, up from 55 for current employees. But the authority proposed that all future transit workers pay 6 percent of their wages toward their pensions, up from the 2 percent that current workers pay.

The transportation authority asserts that it needs to bring its soaring pension costs under control to stave off future deficits. But union leaders vow that they will not sell out future transit workers by saddling them with lesser benefits.

Earlier yesterday, Mr. Toussaint hinted at some movement in the talks at the Grand Hyatt hotel, saying that the union would reduce its wage demands to 6 percent a year, from 8 percent a year, if the authority promised to reduce the number of disciplinary actions brought against transit workers. The authority has offered raises of 3 percent a year for three years.

The union began its strike against two Queens bus lines, Jamaica Buses Inc. and Triboro Coach Corporation, in the hope of pressuring the authority to reach an overall settlement. The walkout angered many Queens commuters and caused many to squeeze into vans and taxis.

The 707 workers at the two bus companies have been without a contract for 33 months. The authority is taking control of those two companies and five others, and union officials assert that the strike against the companies is not prohibited because the authority has not taken full control of them.

The Public Employment Relations Board, a state body that oversees labor relations for government employees, did not issue a decision yesterday in response to a complaint that the union filed on Sunday, asserting that the authority had violated state law by including its pension demands as part of what it said was its final offer. The union has asked the labor board to seek an injunction ordering the authority to drop its pension demand.

At 9:15 p.m. yesterday, the board's executive director, James R. Edgar, said the board had not yet received the authority's legal papers replying to the union.

Many New Yorkers said a strike would disrupt their lives. Doreen Simon, 55, who lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and works as a housekeeper in Riverdale, the Bronx, said, "I'm going to stay home. What can I do? I can't take a cab to the Bronx. It's going to hurt."

The union has repeatedly urged Mr. Pataki to join the talks, trying to put the onus on him if there is a walkout. But the governor, like the mayor, says that the professionals at the authority should handle the talks.

Workers at the Metro-North Railroad and Long Island Rail Road are not expected to strike in support of transit workers. Anthony J. Bottalico, the chairman of the union that represents Metro-North engineers, conductors and rail-traffic controllers, said none of his members planned to strike.

However, two other unions, which represent Metro-North ticket collectors and track workers, have vowed to show solidarity with Local 100 by refusing to cross picket lines, and they could conceivably delay, though not disrupt, regular train service.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/20/nyregion/nyregionspecial3/20strike.html?hp&ex=1135141200&en=59c0d10be02a35f3&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[Schadenfrau]

I have to say, I'm glad. Every public worker in this city deserves more money and I hope this sets a precedent.

Unless your work is a matter of life and death, you're probably not "f*cked."

[JMGarcia]

Transit workers are often overpaid, rude to their customers, and often take advantage of the very good benefits they already receive. Some of them are down right lazy, not working when they should be, calling in sick prodigiously and generally taking advantage whenever possible to do as little as possible as much as possible.

Other transit workers often take a real pride in their jobs and do a good a job as possible.

Ultimately though, I agree completely with the mayor that the strike is illegal, immoral, and selfish. I am one NYer who is tired of this city being "underappreciated and disrespected" by transit workers.

[MrSpice]

Shadenfrau: Shame on you and people like you - those arrogant, uninformed and insensitive.

You think people can handle it, don't you? So you want MTA to pay the workers better? Well, if you read newspapers and tried to educate yourself (not sure if it's possible) you would know that the reason they walked out is that MTA wanted to increase the retirement age to 62 and ask new workers to contribute towards the health plan - that's what all of working in private sector do and have always done. So making more money was not the main issue.

Who will suffer most from this strike? Not the rich living on Manhattan's East/West side. They can hail a cab and get to work. The ones who will suffer most are lower-middle class and middle class people that have to get to work from Brooklyn and Queens. Those that don't have money to pay the inflated car service charges. Those who don't have 3-4 other people to ride with. Those that get payed by hour and will lose some of their precious earnings because of this strike. And the city and its businesses will lose. This union clique is just like a mafia demaning stores to pay up. It's racketeering. It's illegal and immoral.

[ZippyTheChimp]

There is enough hostility involved in a transit shutdown without you adding a personal note.

[stache]

I bought some Metrocards yesterday and I was talking to the booth lady. She said the whole card replacement/credit system was a sham, people are not getting cards and/or credits returned to them. Think about all those cards that will wind up with just $1.00 left on them that will get thrown away (half) from the current holiday promotion. MTA just chisels away.

[ZippyTheChimp]

that's what all of working in private sector do and have always doneNot true.

[Ninjahedge]

I have to say, I'm glad. Every public worker in this city deserves more money and I hope this sets a precedent.

Unless your work is a matter of life and death, you're probably not "f*cked."

I don't think so schade. Since when are they "entitled" to more money than anyone else for an essentially no-skill job?

It is something that needs to be done, and they do deserve FAIR pay and compensation, but since when do we start judging the worth of someones efforts and labors based simply on years of service?

It is also not fair to compare it to profit margins, being a public service.


I think that the unions are being pissey. Most of the changes do not even effect them at all, just new hires. Doing things like making pensions start at, gee I don't know, RETIREMENT AGE, is not too unreasonable to ask. Maybe they should just limit the number of years a pension lasts now that people are, on average, living so much longer after retirement? Retire at 55 if you want, you will only get 15 years of pension (etc etc).




ON THE OTHER HAND, I also agree that the MTA is being god-awful stupid in this. They keep raising fares and taking in more money, but that money evaporates with no real signs of overall improvement. I know that they are trying to do some station renovation (we are involved with some of that) but they have a poor track record with spending in general.

Not much worse than any other government agency, but that is no excuse.

The holiday discounts were stupid. I would rather have cleaner stations than cheaper fares for a limited period of time.


The bottom line is this. These guys can argue all they want, the only ones that suffer are us, the general public.

The MTA is not going to go out of business like some private companies due to a strike, and the MTA workers are not suffering much more than the people they are keeping from work, all in the name of "more money for Me".

Bleh.

[lofter1]

The bottom line is this. These guys can argue all they want, the only ones that suffer are us, the general public.

The TWU workers will find that they themselves are going to suffer a great deal: Lost Wages (which can never be made up and will completely wipe out whatever gains they are hoping to get), Fines ($25k / day so I hear, which undoubtedly a court will rule can be taken out of future wages), Loss of Public Support (whatever support the union now has from ridership will quickly evaporate).

Does the union leadership / board of directors continue to get paid during the strike? Often those folk have separate contracts from what the workers have. So their "suffering" is of a very different type.

Leadership has claimed that what this is all about is "respect". That is an elusive goal, and something that workers will find hard to gain from management, politicians, et al -- especially in a situation like this where the strike action is against the law.

[ryan]

I have to say, I'm glad. Every public worker in this city deserves more money and I hope this sets a precedent.

Repectfully, Not EVERY public worker deserves more money. I think I'd look to social workers, cops and fireman before MTA workers, but then none of them can afford a dramatic strike, huh?

[Hof]

This is TOTALLY unforgivable,Transit workers striking at Christmas.
I lived in the City at the time of the '66 strike,although I was residing Upstate at school when it happened.I really don't remember what time of year it was,but I do remember that Transit union wanted a 35% pay raise and it sure wasn't Christmastime.
By '81 I was living in Florida Where there are no Subways to strike( no snow,either) but I could imagine the agony New Yorkers were going through,deprived of transportation and mobility for a couple weeks.

After that strike,MTA got serious about actually becoming a useable system again,and the trains got much better.I was tied to the Subways and buses for 7 years,five without a car,and public transportation for me was NOT an option,it was IT ! Daily,I would curse and loathe buses and Subways,even as I used them.I was happy to see them change into something useable again.

When I left NYC in the early '70s,the fare was 75 cents,everyone carried a pocketfull of tokens,junk and bum-filled stations were like passing through threatening landfills,the cars were all mobile Street Art museums and the Transit system had been allowed to decay to the point of abandonment.
The '81 strike spurred MTA back to life as a viable institution,and resulted in a much better way to get around,albeit a lot more expensive.
There was a corresponding increase in Subway cops,as well,and crime began to fall off underground.


The Staten Island Ferry used to cost a quarter then.

People adapted fast.New Yorkers are masters of innovation when it comes to coping with the breakdowns of society--blackouts,garbage strikes,taxi fares,finding places where you can smoke,etc,and by the third day of the strike,entrepeneurs had set up all kinds of ways to transport people,from long-distance Hansom Cab fares to rickshaw runners and "volunteer" taxis.Sneaker shops were selling out,and the bicycles pouring off the Brooklyn Bridge made the City look like Bombay.

I visited a few places this morning before posting,and learned that a lot of institutions have already set up carpools and hired limo services for the duration.Bandit Cabs are probably already on the street,and the rickshaw drivers are smelling a Christmas bonus.I bet you can find people who will carry you from place to place on their back,for a fee and a nice tip.New Yorkers can,and will cope with this.

Everybody should take their Christmas-to-New Years Sick Days NOW.Hardly anybody shows up for work during that week anyway,so connive a few permissable Days out of the Boss and start Christmas early.Just hope it doesn't snow a lot.Good luck.

[JMGarcia]

Having read Toussaint's statements in the NY Times I have to say, he is, at best, being somewhat disengenious.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/20/nyregion/20toussaint_remarks.html

First, the MTA surplus for 2006 is being used to cover the onerous bond payments and massive shortfalls that will start occurring in 2007. You can thank Pataki's "creative" financing of the MTA over the past few years for that. Toussaint conveniently doesn't mention anything beyond 2006 because he know how bad it will be for the MTA. Toussaint is basically trying to raid the capital budget of money earmarked for much needed improvements and expansion of service.

Secondly, Toussaint seems to equate management's desire for greater efficiency and productivity for its work for with a lack of "respect". This is pure hogwash IMO.

Ultimately, the MTA is a public agency, not a profitable corporation, and we all pay for the MTA's employee's (and management's) inefficiency, cushy perks, and below standard productivity with the fares and taxes we pay.

[BrooklynRider]

...Well, if you read newspapers and tried to educate yourself (not sure if it's possible) you would know that the reason they walked out is that MTA wanted to increase the retirement age to 62 and ask new workers to contribute towards the health plan - that's what all of working in private sector do and have always done. So making more money was not the main issue...



ACTUALLY, the fact that working people are being saddled with the kind of financial burdens you are talking about is due to union busting practices that have destroyed the gains American workers have made in the 20th Century. If you had the benefits that they have and someone suggested to you that you negotiate them away, you might put up a bit of a fight rather than saying, "Wait, they've rolled everyone else on these costs. I should just let them pick my pocket."

Our failures to secure the same protections are due to the nature of the "me, me, me" work cultures. All of these companies citing huge increases in health insurance and pension liabilities are not unprofitable. They are failing to meet projections. There's a big difference. The failure to meet projections becomes their excuse to further cut into worker's benefits. The erosion of union support and power hurts American workers overall.

The retirement age for cops wasn't raised. The retirement age for teachers wasn't raised. The retirement age for firefighters wasn't raised. A trade-off of a three year contract for seven more years service is nothing I would take. And, if you would read more than newspapers and refer back to their last agreement you will see the crap raises the union got last contract.

The fact is that the MTA is not honest in its bookkeeping and the riders suffer. Then, the workers suffer. The workers are going to get their contract and THAT will be the catalyst for fare increases even though a billion friggin dollar surplus has materialized six months after the MTA was crying poverty and talking about fare increases.

And, let's not forget the $100 million dollar holiday discount. Anyone siding with the MTA on this one has their head in the sand. It is definitely an inconvenience, but I'm glad they're out there. The transit workers have traditionally been a union of minorities and immigrants. The white-led and dominated police, fire and teachers unions all got decent contracts. Teachers work 10 minutes more a day now - not the seven years more in their lives the city wants from Transit.

[JMGarcia]

It is my understanding that the new rules would only be for new employees, not exisiting ones. Existing employees will not be required to retire later or lose any other benefit they have.

I also think anyone who doesn't look beyond the surplus of 2006 has their head in the sand.

It is outrageous to me that MTA employees start at a salary almost 1/3 higher than other public employees including police.

[kliq6]

as a son of a carpenter and a newphew of firemen, the TWU is a joke. This deal was as good as it gets, current employees arent affected at all, they gained a 10.5 % raise over 28 months. Instead they strike, for a future workers right not to give 5% to retirement, and will wind up out 2 days pay for every day and the Union itself will get 1 million a day fines as well. I just read that the International TWU, is pissed at Local 100 and is looking to oust Roger and talk to the MTA again

[krulltime]

NEW YORK CITY TRANSIT STRIKE BY THE NUMBERS


• 7 million-plus -- Daily commuters affected

• 30,000-plus -- Transit workers on strike

• $440 million-$660 million -- Daily economic loss to city

• $1 million -- City damages sought against Transport Workers Union on first day

• 490 -- Subway stations affected

• 244 -- Bus routes affected

• 10,693 -- Buses and subway cars affected

• 55.7% -- New York City residents who don't own a car

• 23 F -- Temperature in New York at 9 a.m. ET


© 2005 Cable News Network LP, LLLP.

[krulltime]

Millions Are Left to Make It to Work Any Way They Can


http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/12/20/nyregion/20cnd-strike.5.650.jpg
At Penn Station, police officers helped fill taxis with people going in the same direction.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/12/20/nyregion/20cnd-strike.4.650.jpg
New York City commuters waited in lines this morning to catch a taxi.


Workers walked to their offices in bitter cold, long lines formed for taxis and the police inspected cars at tunnels and bridges as transit workers started a strike this morning, shutting down New York City's subway and bus system after contract talks with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority broke down.

An average of seven million people ride the subway every day, and the disruption will prevent people from going to work, cause millions of dollars in economic damage and seriously upend the life of the city in the week before Christmas. Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, which represents 33,700 subway and bus workers, announced its first strike in 25 years this morning after feverish last-minute negotiations faltered over the transportation authority's demands for concessions on pension and health benefits for future employees.

The state's Taylor Law bars strikes by public employees and carries penalties of two days' pay for each day on strike, but the transit union decided it was worth risking the substantial fines to continue the fight for what it regards as an acceptable contract.

The union's executive board voted 28 to 10, with 5 members abstaining, to start the strike, but Michael T. O'Brien, the president of the Transport Workers Union of America, Local 100's parent union, warned the board that he could not support a strike because he believed the authority's most recent offer represented real progress.

The authority dropped its demand to raise the retirement age for a full pension to 62 for new employees, up from 55 for current employees. But the authority proposed that all future transit workers pay 6 percent of their wages toward their pensions for their first 10 years of employment, up from the 2 percent that current workers pay.

The transportation authority says that it needs to bring its soaring pension costs under control now to stave off future deficits. But union leaders vow that they will not sell out future transit workers by saddling them with lesser benefits.

Roger Toussaint, president of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, announced the strike at a 3 a.m. news conference and tried to portray the action as part of a broader effort for social justice and workplace rights.

"New Yorkers, this is a fight over whether hard work will be rewarded with a decent retirement," he said. "This is a fight over the erosion, or the eventual elimination, of health-benefits coverage for working people in New York. This is a fight over dignity and respect on the job, a concept that is very alien to the M.T.A."

Peter S. Kalikow, the chairman of the transportation authority, and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg both condemned the union's action, and vowed to pursue more legal action against it. "I have no doubt by working together we can and will get through this," Mr. Bloomberg said, before walking over the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall from the city's emergency operations center in Brooklyn.

Across the city this morning, New York City Transit began to safely shut down the subways and buses, line by line. About 5,000 managers and supervisors, a fraction of the 47,000 workers, will remain on the job to maintain the system during the strike.

Classes at New York City schools were delayed by two hours.

Metro-North railroad and other regional trains were not directly affected by the strike action but they bring in thousands of commuters into the city who then must compete for seats on whatever modes of transportation they could find to reach their offices.

Streets were crowded with workers bundled up against the cold, with a wind chill of as low as 10 degrees Fahrenheit in the early morning hours. Cars were backed up at arteries leading onto the bridges, tunnels and major expressways that feed into Manhattan, as the police peered into cars to enforce the four-passenger rule, turning some away and letting others pass.

Although New Jersey Transit is running on schedule, commuters living west of the Hudson River coped with changes in their usual routines.

By 6 a.m., the Port Authority police had closed several lanes of traffic on the approaches to the Lincoln Tunnel and set up check points to make sure that all vehicles had at least four people in them. Commercial vehicles were turned back, because they are not being permitted into Manhattan before 11 a.m.

At the Port Authority Bus Terminal, lines for taxis were extremely long, even at 6:30 a.m., a time when there is usually no line. New Yorkers, meanwhile, headed into the dark streets to begin the process of finding ways to get to work, or wherever they needed to go. A transit worker who said he had just recently been hired to maintain subway cars drove through Brooklyn offering people rides to work. He picked up a woman on Washington Avenue and dropped her off at Empire Boulevard.

"She was helpless, she had bags," said the man, Samuel Gowrie, 51. "I just volunteered."

He said he did it from "the good of my heart. If someone offers me something, I am not turning it down. But I am not demanding or pursuing money."

At the corner of Cedar and Nassau Streets in the downtown financial district, Christian Kerr, 28, a foreign currency analyst , was assessing his options for getting to his office adjacent to Grand Central Terminal in midtown.

"I don't know how I'm going to get to work, honestly," he said. He thought he might take one of the ferries to the 30's and walk.

"It's a pain in the neck," he said. "I'm very anti-union, especially this time of year. It's ridiculous. If you look what they're asking for, that's 50 years ago. Pensions don't work like that anymore."

The Red Cross had a truck set up on the Manhattan side of the Williamsburg Bridge, with workers saying they would distribute coffee and cocoa to people walking from Brooklyn.

The union has repeatedly urged Gov. George E. Pataki to join the talks, trying to put the onus on him if there was a walkout. But the governor, like the mayor, said that the professionals at the authority should handle the talks.

In a radio interview this morning, John C. Liu, chairman of the City Council's Transportation Committee, said that because the two sides have failed to come together, someone else needs to step in. "I think the most appropriate person to do that I think would be Governor Pataki," he said. "I think he needs to understand how much this is affecting people and how much this is going to drain the economy of much-needed activities and revenues."

Workers at the Metro-North Railroad and Long Island Rail Road are not expected to strike in support of transit workers. Anthony J. Bottalico, the chairman of the union that represents Metro-North engineers, conductors and rail-traffic controllers, said Monday that none of his members planned to strike.

However, two other unions, which represent Metro-North ticket collectors and track workers, have vowed to show solidarity with Local 100 by refusing to cross picket lines, and they could conceivably delay, though not disrupt, regular train service.

Mr. Toussaint appealed for public support, acknowledging the tremendous inconvenience to millions of commuters and tourists. "To our riders, we ask for your understanding and forbearance. We stood with you to keep token booths open, to keep conductors on the trains, to oppose fare hikes," he said. "We now ask that you stand with us. We did not want a strike, but evidently the M.T.A., the governor and the mayor did."

Shortly after he spoke, Mr. Kalikow appeared before reporters to condemn the strike.

"The T.W.U.'s action today is illegal and irresponsible," he said, calling the walkout "a slap in the face to all M.T.A. customers and New Yorkers."

Mr. Kalikow said the authority and the state attorney general would go to state court to seek a contempt citation against the union. Last week, a state judge issued an injunction barring the transit workers from striking under the Taylor Law.

"I regret the enormous inconvenience this will impact on our customers," he said. "The M.T.A. has made every effort to resolve this dispute."

He said the authority had changed its offer so that it no longer demanded an increase in the retirement age. But he said the union rejected that proposal and never made a counteroffer.

Mr. Kalikow said he would guarantee the public that the authority would take every step "to bring this illegal action to an end as quickly as possible."

Mr. Bloomberg, appearing shortly after Mr. Kalikow, said he would ask the city's Corporation Counsel, Michael A. Cardozo, to join the transportation authority and the state attorney general in an emergency court hearing to hold the union in contempt and order severe fines against the union.

"The union must understand there are real and significant consequences to their action," he said. "For their own selfish reasons, the T.W.U. has decided that their demands are more important than the law, the city, and the people they serve. This is not only an affront to the concept of public service, it is a cowardly attempt by Roger Toussaint and the T.W.U. to bring the city to its knees to create leverage for its own bargaining positions."

He said the city must not let the inconveniences created by the strike stop the city's economy from running and stop its schools from functioning.

"I have no doubt by working together we can and will get through this," he said.

The vote by the union board came after a 12-hour round of intense negotiations between the two pivotal figures in the talks - Mr. Kalikow and Mr. Toussaint - who bargained face-to-face Monday for the first time since Friday.

But with just an hour to go before the deadline, Tom Kelly, an authority spokesman, said that efforts to settle the dispute had faltered after the union turned down what he called "a fair offer."

"Unfortunately, that offer has been rejected by the Transport Workers Union, and they have advised us that they were going - that they are going - to leave the building, and going to the union hall," Mr. Kelly said. "The M.T.A. remains ready to continue negotiations." Union officials would not discuss the developments as they headed into their private strategy session.

The transit agency plans to store the majority of the 6,300 subway cars underground, one next to another, to protect them from the elements. Supervisors will run empty trains over the rails to keep them polished and prevent rust.

On Monday night, work trains, including trains that collect trash and transport money and normally begin their runs between 8 and 10 p.m., were ordered out of service. General orders, which alter service so that tracks can be used for construction work, were suspended. The agency's Rail Control Center, in Downtown Brooklyn, was filled with managers and supervisors Monday night and this morning, continuously monitoring service. Starting in the late evening, the agency tried to place a supervisor on each train to ensure the train was safely operated until the completion of its run.

From the time the strike was declared at 3 a.m., it would take more than 2 hours for all the trains to complete their runs.

The bus system is relatively easier to shut down. The 4,600 buses were being returned to their 18 depots this morning, where they will be stored and guarded for the duration of the strike.

The transit union stepped up the pressure by beginning a strikeMonday morning against two Queens bus lines, stranding about 57,000 passengers in what the union portrayed as a prelude to shutting down the whole city transit system, the nation's largest.

The union first threatened to shut down the whole system on Friday, but pushed back the deadline to today, seemingly to increase its leverage by warning of a walkout the week before Christmas, one of the busiest weeks for retailers.

On Monday, at rallies outside the governor's office and in Queens alongside the striking bus workers, Mr. Toussaint and many union members trumpeted their defiance, insisting that it was more important to obtain what they viewed as a just contract than to obey the law barring strikes.

City officials have prepared an emergency plan that would increase ferry service, allow taxis to pick up multiple fares, close several streets to traffic except for buses and emergency vehicles, and prohibit cars with fewer than four passengers from entering Manhattan below 96th Street during the morning rush. The city is also deploying hundreds of police officers to secure subway entrances in the event of a walkout.

The transportation authority's 11th-hour offer included a 3 percent raise in the first year, 4 percent in the second year and 3.5 percent in the third year of a new contract, representatives on both sides said. Before Monday, it was offering 3 percent a year for three straight years.



Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

[Schadenfrau]

Why exactly should the TWU members be willing to let new members get the shaft?

It's pretty obvious that police, teachers, and firefighters all deserve to be paid more than they're getting at the moment. Still, it doesn't do much good to speculate about who deserves what at this point.

[krulltime]

Cabs With Strangers, and Other Ways to Work


http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/12/20/nyregion/20cnd-commute.1.583.jpg
Commuters biked, roller-skated and walked across the Brooklyn Bridge today.


By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS and COLIN MOYNIHAN
Published: December 20, 2005

New York City's subways and buses were replaced by rusty bicycles, old walking shoes, ferries and $20 cab rides today, as millions of New Yorkers who usually take public transportation were left to make it to work any way they could.

The strike by 33,000 transit workers left some 6.9 million people, from school children to physicians, without their usual way to get around in 21-degree temperatures made chillier by a sharp wind. Some employers sent out chartered buses and vans to fetch their workers, other people started walking but turned back when they tired, and some didn't bother leaving the house at all.

But many decided to drive. Some found fairly clear roads leading into tunnels, though others confronted traffic snarls as early as 5 a.m., as police officers turned away cars that had fewer than the four passengers required to enter Manhattan south of 96th Street during the morning rush.

So in a city where it is deemed polite to avoid eye contact with passengers sitting inches away on a crowded subway, New Yorkers were compelled to hop into cars with perfect strangers in order to comply with the four-passenger rule.

"I was waiting and no bus came," said Larissa Silver, 38, who lives in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, and works on Wall Street in Lower Manhattan. "Then a lady pulled up in a car and said, 'Does anybody need a ride downtown?' "

Ms. Silver, who left her house at 5:30 a.m. to get there by 9 a.m., added: "So far, I've been lucky, but this is just the beginning. I don't know how I'll get home. I have no idea."

Christopher Williams, a 44-year-old maintenance worker, was waiting on the corner of 125th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard in Harlem, wondering how to get to his job at 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue. He said he had risen at 4 a.m. instead of 6 a.m. because he anticipated problems.

"The man who gets paid by the day is going to suffer," he said. "You don't show up, you don't get paid."

Dumbia Adam, 36, who had become frustrated while waiting for a company van at 125th Street and Broadway in the predawn hours said a day at work downtown was not worth the hassle of a wearisome morning commute.

"I'll wait until 6:30 a.m., then I'm going home," he said. "I'm not paying $20 for a taxi."

Along major thoroughfares throughout the city, police officers set up check points and blocked streets, reserving lanes for carpoolers and taxi cabs - which during the strike will be allowed to pick up multiple fares, something that is usually prohibited. Madison and Fifth Avenues, which usually hum with traffic, were closed to all but emergency vehicles and buses during the morning rush. Some drivers were forced to wait in their cars for more than an hour until enough passengers could be persuaded to join them.

"You need a ride?" shouted out a man with two passengers driving a silver Mercedes SUV after he stopped on the corner of 125th Street and Broadway. A woman said that she did. The driver turned away and asked a few others where each was trying to go. He turned back to the woman, "Come on, mama, I'll give you a ride," he said.

By midmorning, one of the police checkpoints at 96th Street and Broadway had backed up to 125th Street.

Anne Reilly, a 31-year-old clothing designer, who was trying to get to midtown Manhattan, said the prospect of getting into a car with people she did not know had made her pause.

"I think there are enough police around if anything happens," she said. "The city needs to come together on things like this. I normally wouldn't get in a car with strangers."

Even some cabdrivers, eager to profit under the strike rules allowing them to pick up multiple fares, were grumbling.

"This is going to be bad for everyone," said John Mousadakas, who has been driving a taxi for 28 years. At 9:15 a.m., Mr. Mousadakas, 62, said he had seen "hardly any" groups of people hailing cabs. "A lot of people are staying at home," he said.

Many others walked to work, including Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who spent the night on a cot at the city's emergency operations center in Brooklyn. Accompanied by a retinue of police officers and reporters, he made the 35-minute walk across the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall at about 7:20 a.m. among a throng of thousands of other walkers, skaters and bicyclists, most heavily bundled. The mayor wore a black leather jacket with the collar turned up and a pair of faded jeans. As they approached him from behind, bicyclists had to dismount and walk.

After she'd finished crossing the 6,000-foot long bridge, one pedestrian announced, "I need a foot massage."

After he successfully made it over on his bike, James Fowler, a 40-year old physical therapist from Prospect Heights had second thoughts as well. He still had a few miles to go to his office in Union Square.

"It's cold," he said. "I'm not quite prepared. I don't normally do this."

If the strike continues for several days, Mr. Fowler said he would be forced to consider options other than the bike he had not been on since midsummer.

But "for now," he said, "it's the bicycle."

By late morning, the bridge was still full of people streaming across into Manhattan.

Former Mayor Edward I. Koch, who walked across the Brooklyn Bridge during the strike of 1980, said in an interview on WNYC-FM radio that he received a 6:30 a.m. phone call from the livery cab that picks him up most mornings at 7:30 a.m. telling him to be prepared to be picked up early.

"Instead of being called at 7:30, when I normally leave," he said, "I got called at about a quarter of 7 and I go downstairs and two young women who were going to work say they're going on Sixth Avenue. And I said, 'Come with me.' And I took them up and took them to their place of work and I got to my place of work. So it was easy for me this morning."

Janon Fisher, Vikas Bajaj, Maria Aspan and Ann Farmer contributed reporting for this article.


Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

[Ninjahedge]

Why exactly should the TWU members be willing to let new members get the shaft?

It's pretty obvious that police, teachers, and firefighters all deserve to be paid more than they're getting at the moment. Still, it doesn't do much good to speculate about who deserves what at this point.

Yes it does.

You just start throwing money around it does noone any good.

The MTA sucks with its management, but this TWU is being unreasonable. the only thing I have heard come out strongly is "They have money and we want some".

That is BS. It is like asking for a raise because you had a kid. YES you need the money more, but are you doing anything more for the company now that you have a kid? No? then you should be paid the same ammount (although a lot of companies DO pay you a bit more in that they enable you to put the kid on your insurance policy which they partially cover).

Anyway, most of the numbers are just BS to try to gain bargaining room. NOONE gets an 8% raise for doing nothing more than the previous years. Well, aside from congress. The 8% was there to barter and bolster the 2%/3% raise that was first on the table.

The 50 year old retirement age was another one there placed to counter the 62 year old proposal.

I think they should let these guys retire whenever they want, but make two stipulations. First being, the longer you work for them, the better the benefit. The second, you only GET a certain ammount of years of pension depending on the age you retire.

Let them retire at 50 after only 20 years of service, but pro-rate the ammount and start at a low ammount of years you can collect the pension. Base the pensions say on a 50%/30 year commitment and a 30 year/65 year old retirement age.

Or something similar.

Example:

You started at age 30. You want to get out ASAP, so you work 20 years. Fine.

But, at age 50, you only get 10 years of pension. And after only 20 years, you only get 35% of your final NON OVERTIME net pay.

You work 5 more years. The pension period extends to 15 years of benefits since you are retiring at 55. Since you have been there 25 years, your % goes to 40%.

OK, you decide to go for the whole enchelada. Say 60 years old, 30 years of service. That is the baseline, the same 50% salary, for 25 years.

Each year later than that, you get more benefits to a maximum. They could probably look at retirement age and age of death as a way to make it so that net costs do not come out as much more in the long run, but the people still get more money in their pockets each month for working longer/harder.

You retire at 70, you get it for life, and you get something like 65% of your salary, but unlike the current plan, it would probably costthe same $$ in the long run.

If both people, age 55 and age 70 lived to 100, 45 years at 50% compared to 30 years at 65%......

OK, so you work

[NYCDOC]

It is worthwhile to discuss who is getting what right now. The whole idea here is to negotiate a contract that is fair. How many people on this thread will have the opportunity to collect retirement benefits at the age of 50? Does that have anything to do with the cost of living in NYC? NO! It is just purely obnoxious. I don't know why more people aren't standing up and arguing against this. Most people are uninformed and just think oh it is about making a living. It is much more than that. The TWU is taking advantage of MTA's surplus, which should not be used to give workers better pay and benefits than most of us. The surplus should be used to improve the transit system's infrastructure and pay down the huge debts the MTA has.

I would really agree and feel bad if I heard that transit workers were receiving below minimum wage and worked in inhuman conditions. But that certainly is not the case. These guys are lazy and greedy, period. Especially the union bosses.

And for those of you who think that they deserve to collect their pension at 50 and pay nothing toward it, be my guest and make your contribution by paying $4 a ride, continue to receive crap service, and watch NY suffer as the cost of living continues to rise because of greedy unions!

[Gab]

I have to cancel my business apointment because of strike, it really pisses me off. As customer as all of you should complain to the MTA to tell them the strike doesn't make sense at all. I heard on LCN news that New York city lose 400 millions $ because of that strike. On January I hope the strike will be over.:(

If there is a complaint department, don't give up while you complain and tell the Union and MTA workers to move their asses.

[At_the_horizon]

Come on now guys. They need better health benifits. They really do work in dangerous contions, well at least the subway workers do. Think aobut it, they work with electricy, in dirty tunnels, with rats, maybe even other stuff we don't know about. THe pay well, I don't know if they should be protesting avout that. There's so many people who get a lot less than they do. Did they pick the wrong time to strike. Yes and no. They're costing us so much money, but if you think about it from their point of view, when else can you strike so that you get so much attention?

[JMGarcia]

They're not arguing about their health benefits, just whether new employees should have to contribute 1% towards the cost of their coverage. Its very minimal by industry standards not to mention in the private sector.

No one is trying to reduce the health benefits MTA employees received.

[stache]

TWU probably does not want to start a two tier system with employees. That's a typical divide & conquer strategy to weaken unions.