Union Rep Seats On MTA Board Out of Service

GENE RUSSIANOFF: Union, rider voices stilled. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority board has lost the six nonvoting seats reserved for commuter and union representatives, unless the State Legislature reauthorizes them. The law mandating these seats expired Dec. 31.

While the members do not have the ability to vote on major issues such as the MTA budget, they often use their positions to voice criticism of MTA plans at the board’s monthly meetings.

‘Hurts Riders, Workers’

“It really hurts the riders and the workers,” said Gene Russianoff, the attorney for the Straphangers Campaign. “Here was a direct pipeline to the big cheeses about what riders and workers were thinking, and that is going to be lost for what I hope will be a very brief period.”

Andrew Albert, the non-voting member representing the New York City Transit Riders Council, believed it was possible that the Legislature would renew the mandate by the next board meeting Jan. 27. He added that the input of the rider and union board members was valuable in the decision making process.

“We bring lots of issues to the table,” he said. “We never felt like we were anything less until a vote came.”

Mr. Albert said that if their seats are not restored by Jan. 27, advocates could still make their agendas known to the board during the public comment periods before each meeting.

The last non-voting union reps on the board were Vincent Tessitore Jr., a chairman of Local 645 of the United Transportation Union; Norman Brown, legislative director of the New York State Council of Machinists; and Ed Watt, the former secretary-treasurer of Transport Workers Union Local 100.

The other members representing the riders’ councils were Ira Greenberg of the Long Island Rail Road and James Blair of Metro-North.

Mr. Russianoff couldn’t say for sure why the Legislature did not renew the law mandating the six seats, but noted, “I just think it’s part and parcel of a Legislature that didn’t deal with many issues.”