Sign Bill Giving Pension Refund To Local 100

By ARI PAUL

Governor Spitzer signed legislation July 26 granting refunds to Transport Workers Union Local 100 members who over-contributed to their pension plans.

A three-person arbitration panel issued a contract award for Local 100 on Dec. 15, 2006 ensuring that roughly 22,000 Local 100 members who previously made higher contributions toward their pensions between 1994 and 2000 will get the original individual refunds that could amount to as much as $14,000, costing the Metropolitan Transportation Authority an estimated $132 million in payments from two pension systems to which transit workers belong.

MTA's Second Thoughts

The MTA had filed a petition for arbitration with the Public Employment Relations Board on Jan. 23, 2006 - three days after union members rejected a tentative contract providing the refund - with a contract offer without the pension refund. Arbitration panel chair George Nicolau included a form of the refund in the award he issued last December, however.

"All that remain are the details of getting the money into the hands of the thousands of TWU Local 100 members and recent retirees eligible to receive the refund," stated a Local 100 flyer.

Getting the bill passed and signed was a part of Local 100's legislative agenda for 2007, even though the MTA would have had to cover the payouts if Mr. Spitzer had balked.

Local 100 members will receive letters, the flyer said, telling them how to get their refund, either through the New York City Employees' Retirement System or the retirement plan for Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority employees.

The union will hold several pension refund training sessions with members covered under the MaBSTOA plan on Aug. 8 at 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. in the union's headquarters at 80 West End Ave., on Aug. 14 at 11 a.m., 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. at 3053 Corlear Ave. in The Bronx, and Aug. 16 and 22 at 9 a.m., 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. at that address.

These meetings are limited only to Local 100 members in good standing, according to the flyer.

The union held a meeting for members contributing to NYCERS on Aug. 2 in the Astoria section of Queens.