Chance of Early TWU Contract Spurs Mixed Reaction From Field

New York City Transit workers believe that a new wage contract is coming soon. Over Columbus Day weekend, the executive board of Transport Workers Union Local 100 convened three times to discuss a possible pact's terms, but all the meetings were ultimately canceled.

ROGER TOUSSAINT: A less-confrontational stance.

President Roger Toussaint said in a dispatch to members that the executive board had authorized him to reach a settlement well in advance of the current pact's expiration in January, and one for Metropolitan Transportation Authority Bus members early in anticipation of a worsening economic situation in the city and state.

Hard to Top Prior Tumult

In the last round of contract talks that resulted in a three-day strike, a deal that ended the walkout only to be voted down by the membership, and an eventual arbitration award that was identical to the rejected deal, among the issues of concern was the pact's requiring employees to pay 1.5 percent of their earnings toward their health insurance. This time, in addition to anticipation about wage increases, one key issue of this contract is how the MTA will consolidate its three bus companies where Local 100 has members into a regional bus network.

JOE SEXTON: Pressing pension issues.

The MTA has made moves to commingle company workers since 2000. Sources said last week that while Mr. Toussaint was in San Francisco in talks with TWU International officers, he was accompanied by reps from Local 100's Manhattan and Bronx Surface Operating Authority Division who have been leery of any wage pact that results in a comprehensive regional bus plan.

Local 100 and NYC Transit officials have been tight-lipped about the talks, but there is no question that the MTA wants to include the terms of a regional bus network in the new wage pact, which it claims would save money and offer a general workforce of Bus Operators and utility workers who could move seamlessly into jobs at MTA Bus, Transit Authority Surface and MaBSTOA depots.

Gain in Wages, Loss of Seniority?

MTA Bus workers have been without a contract since 2000, and sources also indicated that a wage pact would bring them to parity with workers in the other two bus divisions. Various bus worker reps have expressed concern, however, that a regional bus network, although a cost-saving measure for the MTA, might put some workers' seniority rights in jeopardy.

The MTA announced in May that it has begun integrating bus company managements. Gene Russianoff, the attorney for the Straphangers' Campaign, explained earlier this year that Local 100 had opposed legislation to create a regional bus network due to concerns about "whether what [MTA officials] call redundancies result in cutting service."

But regional bus, in the long term, could be a benefit to Mr. Toussaint. He has long criticized what he has described as a bloated management, and in July during an MTA Board meeting said that the budget — which is to be voted on in December — should include more administrative cuts before the board contemplates labor concessions and fare hikes. The creation of a regional bus company, besides cutting back-office functions and instituting a general manager system on individual subway lines, could cut management costs.

Divided Sentiments

MTA Bus members would likely approve a contract that brought them up to parity with TA Surface and MaBSTOA workers, and they are eager for a pension settlement, according to Joe Sexton, the Queens chair of the union's Private Lines Division and a vocal dissident. But members in the other two divisions might not be so quick to vote for a pact that gives them raises but threatens their pick rights.

"If a driver is a driver at one depot, can he be sent to another depot for another pick?" asked Ulmer Park Depot Bus Operator Tommy McNally. "I wouldn't be afraid if I knew what was involved. People are afraid because they don't know what's happening with this."

Mr. McNally said he has been dissatisfied over all with the wage increases Mr. Toussaint has negotiated and worried that Local 100 would muddle the issues of regional bus in order to quell opposition.

"He has a way of putting out the big lie and telling it over and over again and people believe it," he said of the Local 100 president. "I think he's going to try to do it with regional bus. We won't really know what regional bus is about until the contract is signed."

Seniority Bypassed?

Workers' concerns about consolidation of the bus companies are nothing new. At the Zerega Ave. bus maintenance facility in The Bronx, originally designated for a commingling of the two NYC Transit bus divisions, several TA Surface workers claimed they were discriminated against when it came to seniority. According to these workers, there are 38 TA Surface workers and 203 from MaBSTOA, and if a TA Surface Worker has 20 or 30 years on the job, that worker constantly sees a MaBSTOA worker with less service time get preference for overtime and days off.

For workers in the Maintenance of Way Division, where opposition to the current administration is strong, the prospects of the contract are less ominous, even as the MTA has said that it has hoped for union give-backs in order to reduce its deficit. Even MoW reps who were elected on the now-defunct Rail and Bus United opposition slate said that if the contract included 3- or 4-percent wage increases, the union could expect ratification from division members.

Yet Mr. Toussaint's opponents in the union have criticized the secrecy in which contract talks have taken place. In August, Mr. Sexton sought an injunction requiring that he be included in negotiations in accordance with the union's own rules, noting that Mr. Toussaint, then the Track Division chair, made a similar legal move when he was locked out of contract talks in 1999.

Spokesmen for both the MTA and Mr. Toussaint did not respond to requests for comment concerning the contract.

Earlier this month, Train Operator Division Chair Steve Downs wrote in an e-mail to division members, "Not only are the members being sidelined, so are most of the elected officers. For example, the contract policy committee (the executive board and division officers) is supposed to discuss and approve the local's demands. It doesn't look like that's happening."