Hope to Revise Deal

TWU Board Votes To Return to Table

By GINGER ADAMS OTIS

ROGER TOUSSAINT: Reviving talks 'makes sense.'

Transport Workers' Union Local 100 executive board members voted overwhelmingly Jan. 31 to return to the bargaining table with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority as the next step in the union's ongoing effort to get a contract.

This was the first executive board meeting held since members voted down the tentative agreement with the MTA Jan. 20.

New Strike Ruled Out

There were some quiet rumblings immediately after the vote about a second strike, but that idea was quickly quashed by a Local 100 leadership reluctant to give the MTA more ammunition in its push toward binding arbitration, something the union has staunchly opposed.

Once again, Local 100's bitter internal power struggles spilled onto the street after the meeting, allowing several angry dissident members to briefly capture the media limelight before President Roger Toussaint emerged.

"We are opposed to the content of the proposals put forward by the MTA. We believe there is plenty and able time to arrive at a new contract. We intend to resume negotiations," Mr. Toussaint told waiting reporters. "That's clearly the path that is available to us, the path that makes sense."

He said the union was hopeful a negotiating session would be set up soon and was reaching out to the MTA to draw up a schedule. But, he said, the union would negotiate from where it left off - with the previous tentative agreement its members just rejected, not with the vastly inferior deal outlined in the MTA's request for binding arbitration.

That offer contained all the previous elements workers found too onerous - increased pension contributions, a health-care contribution and a decent but not stellar wage increase - and none of the benefits the union had managed to negotiate, like maternity-leave stipends, an extra paid holiday, increased assault pay for certain titles, and long-term health care for retirees.

It also contained broad-banding and title consolidation demands that the MTA had scrapped before reaching the spurned contract deal.

When asked by a reporter how concerned he was by the "total dissension" among executive board members, Mr. Toussaint shot back that a majority of the members had voted to resume negotiations. He said the earlier actions of some dissident members were mainly a bid to gain media attention.

'Most on Same Page'

"They are a tiny minority inside our union. Three quarters of our executive board voted to resume negotiations, so a clear majority is on the same page, and nearly 50 percent of the membership voted for the contract agreement - it was only lost by seven votes," he reminded the crowd. "This show of dissent is just that - a sideshow. We are focused on getting a contract for our nearly 34,000 members. That's the real issue."

The executive board also voted to strip workers who crossed the picket lines of their union voting rights for an undetermined time.

Mr. Toussaint wouldn't comment on the negotiating implications of MTA Executive Director Katherine Lapp's statement that fare hikes in 2007 might not be necessary, but reiterated that the union "had always stood by the public" in opposing fare increases.

Ms. Lapp, addressing the State Legislature's joint Ways and Means Committee, said revenues from real estate taxes and savings on debt service were greater than anticipated, although deficits were still predicted for future years.

The MTA said in November it would end 2006 with a $220 million surplus. But with unexpected tax revenues and savings, that could jump to $271 million - without counting $50 million the Authority has set aside for possible holiday fare breaks in December 2006.