In Upcoming Pay Talks
MTA Plans to Ask TWU for Givebacks

By ARI PAUL

Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials March 25 confirmed fears Transport Workers Union Local 100 has had about upcoming contract talks: that management will seek givebacks to cope with budget shortfalls.

ROGER TOUSSAINT: Pushing for quick deal.

Testifying before the City Council's Transportation Committee concerning its budget, MTA Director of Government Affairs Hilary Ring said that all of its agencies had been asked to reduce their budgets by 1.5 percent. He cited falling profits on Wall Street and reduced revenue from real-estate taxes as the main causes of the drop in available funds.

Labor Costs Steep

"We will be asking labor for modest contributions as contracts come up for negotiation," he said. "Pensions are 8 percent [of the budget] - also a cost that is increasing - and health and welfare benefits are 10 percent. Payroll expenses are 38 percent of our budget, overtime pay is 4 percent and non-labor expenditures are 25 percent."

Local 100 President Roger Toussaint had told his membership in the most-recent issue of the union's newsletter that the faltering economy would mean tough negotiations with the MTA.

The Chief-Leader/Adrienne Haywood-James THEY SAY CUT BACK: Metropolitan Transportation Authority Director of Government Affairs Hilary Ring, right, told the City Council's Transportation Committee March 25 that persuading labor unions to make 'modest contributions' during contract negotiations would help balance its budget.

"This round of contract negotiation will take place against the backdrop of a dangerous implosion of the real-estate and securities markets," Mr. Toussaint wrote. "These events not only threaten an economic downturn; they threaten a particular fall in the Mortgage Recording Tax, which the MTA has come to rely upon for funding. The longer we take to settle the contract, the deeper we go into an uncertain terrain."

The current Local 100 pact expires Jan. 15, 2009, but Mr. Toussaint is seeking to negotiate earlier than usual on a new deal.

Track Inspector and Local 100 dissident leader John Samuelsen said the union had made plenty of concessions to the MTA over the last six years, including the transfer to management of control over the health benefit trust fund in 2002 and the deduction of 1.5 percent of employees' earnings to help pay for health-care benefits under the current wage pact, which Mr. Samuelsen called the "mother of all givebacks." Until this contract, New York City Transit workers had not contributed any of their pay to health-care coverage.

'Same Old Song'

"This is the same old song-and-dance: Every time we approach a contract fight, the MTA will find a way to say that they don't have any money for transit workers," Mr. Samuelsen said. "We've suffered with lower-than-inflation wage increases at least for the last six years. What more do they want out of us?"

The announcement came a day after the authority said that a $30-million plan to expand rail services that MTA Executive Director Elliot G. Sander made public March 2 had to be delayed at least several months.

"It's a bummer and obviously you have to question why they announced they were going ahead on March 2 and they're going three weeks later and they're cutting them," said Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers' Campaign in a phone interview last week. "It's going to make their customers very skeptical."

Council Transportation Committee Chairman John Liu was visibly exasperated at the MTA officials for the turnabout, which happened in the same month commuters received a fare increase.

"It is shocking, to say the least," Mr. Liu said. "Please give us something to cling onto hope."

No More Money

Mr. Ring defended the delay, which he stressed throughout the meeting did not amount to a complete cancellation of the rail service improvements, saying that the MTA's revenue is based on volatile factors, especially real-estate taxes that make up nearly 25 percent of its income.

"I think we've been very consistent," Mr. Ring said. "We can't spend money that we don't have."

Members of the Council maintained their displeasure with the MTA's announcement, despite Mr. Ring's assurance that it was the most "prudent" fiscal option.

"It's not prudence," a calmer Mr. Liu said. "It's audacity."