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TWU's Giveaway To the Editor: In your Oct. 6 interview, Roger Toussaint claimed that "the 1.5-percent giveback was offset by wage increases and other benefit gains, including extending healthcare coverage to members who were without benefits, if they retired before age 65." While pre-Medicare retirees living outside New York who belong to Transport Workers' Union Local 100 certainly needed their benefits improved, there was no need to give anything back to get this, and certainly not more than $31M per year for a benefit costing only $13M per year. He agreed to this at a time when the MTA was sitting on a surplus of over $1 billion. In addition, he knew full well that the actual costs of our health benefits were $92 million less than had been projected in the last contract and that New York City Transit was expecting to get back over $16 million per year from the new Medicare prescription drug benefit. The MTA has been trying for years to get us to pay for our own health benefits. With the 1.5 percent, they have finally gotten Local 100 to agree. It represents a big foot in the door. Management will surely demand that we pay even more in future negotiations. Toussaint has already agreed we should pay, so the only argument remaining is how much. In the 2002 contract, Toussaint gave up control over our Health Benefits Trust and agreed to have the TA take over direct administration of our benefits. He assured us at the time that we would no longer have to worry about health-care costs. That assurance lasted only until the next contract. Toussaint has condemned the prior Local 100 leadership for trading away our health benefits, first by giving away the HBT surplus and later for underfunding our benefits. He has now followed this shameful tradition.
MICHAEL JEROME
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