Want Some 'Track' Staff To Do Without Weekends Off

The Chief-Leader/Michel Friang WANTS MILITANT APPROACH: Before an emergency union meeting, Eric Josephson told fellow members that workers had twice thwarted New York City Transit efforts to discontinue weekend Regular Days-Off by forming safety committees that scrutinized work sites and slowed production to the point that management backed off from its demands.

Transport Workers Union Local 100 officials said it is in receipt of a New York City Transit job-pick proposal that would require several hundred Track Division workers to have two weekdays as Regular Days-Off instead of the traditional mix of one weekday and one weekend day.

Track Division members attended an emergency meeting Dec. 30 at the union's Upper West Side headquarters to discuss the possible changes, which the union said would include 52 members with two weekday RDOs while other members of their work gangs had a weekend day.

'Drastic Changes'

Earlier in the month, Local 100 Maintenance of Way Vice President Charles Ayala issued a letter to members saying that the union had received a tentative job-pick proposal for the Track Division that included "drastic RDO changes" for certain titles.

"This proposal would drastically cut the number of day gangs with weekend RDOs, piling up a lot more Thursday Friday and Monday-Tuesday RDOS instead," he said.

Mr. Ayala called the changes "an attack against our seniority."

Before last week's union division meeting, Track Worker Eric Josephson recalled that twice since 2000 management had tried to impose midweek RDOs, but that the union organized safety inspection teams to scrutinize workplaces on the track. This slowed down production, he said, which was a big-enough problem for management that it withdrew its scheduling-change demand.

"Management appeared to back down then," said Mr. Josephson, a vocal dissident who has been suspended from his duties as vice chair of the Track Division by the union following a dispute over this issue. "But they're back. We knew they would be."

Questions Union's Commitment

He said that forming safety committees would be the only way workers could fight off the proposal, but was skeptical that the union leadership would organize or endorse such action. Sources attending the meeting said that Local 100 Track Division staffers did not proposal such actions and insisted that because the proposal was only tentative, the union could block its implementation during negotiations.

The change would allow for more track maintenance work to be conducted on weekends so that less work would disrupt weekday commuting, but workers have complained that such a change would negatively affect their family lives.

NYC Transit spokesman Charles Seaton denied that an official proposal had been made to the union but said that "we have been concerned about worsening on-time performance figures on the system and we continue to look for ways to improve subway performance."

He added, "It appears that someone may have an internal document meant for purposes of analysis only."

Nicole Gelinas, a scholar focusing on mass transit policy for the conservative Manhattan Institute, believed that such a change was necessary.

'Perfectly Reasonable'

"I think this proposal sounds perfectly reasonable," she said in an email. "Any incremental creative step to increase labor-force flexibility— while also cutting costs and time for vital maintenance work—is welcome."

She discounted workers' concerns that such a change would disrupt their family lives.

"All kinds of people, from doctors to pilots to nurses to reporters to doormen to retail clerks, work weekends in order to serve their customers," Ms. Gelinas said."There are ways to work it out.And some people like having a weekday off instead of a weekend day to avoid crowds at the grocery store, etc."

But Mr. Ayala maintained in his letter that "these proposed changes are intolerable and we will fight against their implementation."

Track Inspector and dissident John Samuelsen said that in addition to union safety checks, the only way workers were able to block midweek RDOs in the past was by conducting work slowdowns, which he acknowledged were violations of the state's Taylor Law. He doubted that the union would stand behind members who took this approach.

"Unless we collectively impact their ability to maintain production levels, coupled with their ability to maintain on-time train performance, they will have no respect for us as a union," he said of NYC Transit management. "Talk is cheap. That's all they envision the response from Local 100 is going to be: Continued cheap talk."