Under Health Benefit Suit
TWU Premium Freeze Sought

By ARI PAUL

A Federal Judge will receive briefs from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Transport Workers Union Local 100 this month opposing a motion brought by a group of transit workers seeking to halt the 1.5-percent member health contribution mandated under their current wage contract.

The Chief-Leader/Ari Paul AN END TO THE 1.5?: Train Operator Daniel D'Antonio is the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Transport Workers Union Local 100 tied to health-benefit contributions made a dozen years ago, and moved last month for injunctive relief regarding the 1.5 percent of earnings transit workers contribute for health-care coverage.

The lawsuit filed in June 2006, with Train Operator Daniel D'Antonio as the lead plaintiff, charged that while workers made additional health-benefit contributions in the mid-1990s to pay for full health coverage for retirees between the ages of 55 and 62, a past administration of Local 100 concealed from them the circumstances under which that payment became linked to legislation granting a full pension at age 55 after 25 years of service. It also alleges that the MTA improperly retained the roughly $20 million in health-benefit contributions that were made before the discontinuation of those deductions.

Put Payments in Escrow?

In early December, the plaintiffs moved to have all of the 1.5 percent of earnings workers contribute toward their health coverage put into an escrow account while health-benefits finances are being audited.

"Why are we really paying 1.5-percent medical tax and all of it is really financing our retirement health benefits?" asked Irving Lee, a Train Operator who's a plaintiff in the case.

The MTA and Local 100 must formally answer the motion by Jan. 7. The plaintiffs will then have until Jan. 14 to reply.

Mr. D'Antonio expected U.S. District Judge Kimba M. Ward to make a decision by early February. Both the union and the MTA initially asked the court to suspend the motion until other matters before it were settled.

"In fact, where plaintiffs' employer is an ongoing entity continuing to provide the disputed pension and health benefits to employees throughout this litigation, the 'drastic remedy' of receivership would merely consume more resources of all parties," MTA attorney Ching Wah Chin said in court papers last month.

One Local 100 member who had been asked to join the plaintiffs feared that granting the motion might have negative fallout for workers.

"In my view it's a matter of principle not to sue your own union," said Station Agent Marty Goodman, a vocal critic of labor and management cooperation who declined to be a part of the lawsuit last year. "I feel I won't put the union in harm's way. Suing the MTA I have no problem with."

Arthur Schwartz, a Local 100 attorney who represented dissident union members who challenged the 1995 health-benefit contribution, a year ago questioned whether Judge Wood would grant the plaintiffs' motion even though that initial charge was falsely portrayed to union members by then-President Damasco Seda as part of the pension legislation. Mr. Schwartz noted that the union failed to persuade the state's highest court to order that extra pension contributions under that deal be returned after subsequent legislation made them unnecessary.

While unsure how the judge would ultimately rule, Mr. D'Antonio believed the decision to consider the motion for injunctive relief, rather than suspend it as the defendants asked, was a positive step.

"This is a major victory," said Mr. D'Antonio. "It's a big plus for us."