TWU Day of Outrage: Just Give 'em Heck

The Chief-Leader/Michel Friang

WALKING THE LINE. . .AT LUNCH: The anticipated ‘Day of Outrage’ had been rumored beforehand to include subway and bus slowdowns, although Local 100 denied the rumors and the MTA reported no disruptions. The protests instead featured lunch-time pickets, such as this one at the 207th St. train overhaul shop in Manhattan. Several hundred Transport Workers Union Local 100 members picketed outside the 207th St. train yard in the Inwood section of Manhattan Oct. 14 as part of a “Day of Outrage” protesting the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s legal challenge to a recent contract arbitration award.

Rumors had circulated that Local 100 members were urged to slow bus and subway service as part of the effort. Such on-the-job protests by public sector workers are illegal under the state’s Taylor Law. An MTA spokesman said that the agency had not experienced work slowdowns Oct. 14, and Local 100 Acting President Curtis Tate said that the demonstrations were similar to the ones the union held in 2005 before the threeday strike.

‘Not Calling for Slowdowns’

“We didn’t do slowdowns then,” he said during the lunch-hour protest. “The local is not calling for slowdowns.”

Mr. Tate said that he was scheduled to meet with MTA Chairman and CEO Jay Walder, who took over the helm of the agency this month after Acting CEO Helena Williams moved forward with the agency’s legal challenge. The union president said that it would give Mr. Walder the “benefit of the doubt” and urge him to drop the challenge in order to smooth labor relations.

“We know that he’s just coming in; this is dumped in his lap,” he said. “But here’s his opportunity to do the right thing and get off on a good foot.”

A tripartite arbitration panel in August awarded a contract for Local 100 members at New York City Transit granting 11-percent raises over three years, capping the worker contribution to health-care benefits at 1.5 percent, and ending the assessment on overtime earnings. The MTA is asking a judge to overturn the decision, saying that the panel did not consider evidence that the raises would be too burdensome given the agency’s current financial problems and the recession.

Union’s Counter-Arguments

The union argues that the raises were similar to those in many recently settled municipal contracts. Mr. Tate last week stressed that the MTA was not acting in good faith because both parties entered into arbitration with the understanding that the outcome was binding. He also said it was hypocritical of the MTA, with Mr. Bloomberg’s support, to challenge the award after they both urged the union to go to arbitration in 2005.

“It’s not a matter at this point whether they were good-enough contract terms; arbitration is legal and binding on both sides, so whatever the result was is what it should be,” he said. “You don’t get a chance to change it.”

Despite the MTA’s status as a state authority, the battle is playing prominently in the mayoral race. After receiving the endorsement of the Correction Officers Benevolent Association Oct. 13, Democratic candidate William Thompson said that even if Local 100 organized work slowdowns, it might not necessarily be violating the Taylor Law.

‘Favoring Political Allies’

Howard Wolfson, a spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg’s re-election campaign, said in a statement, “Once again, today Bill Thompson practiced politics as usual by putting the special interests ahead of the public good. If the Transport Workers Union sponsored a work slowdown it would clearly violate the Taylor Law. We can’t afford a Mayor who puts his political allies ahead of straphangers and would leave New Yorkers literally waiting for the bus.”

Nelson Rivera, the union’s Car Equipment Division vice president, said that Mayor Bloomberg was supporting the MTA’s legal challenge in order to take a populist stance against the union.

“The Mayor chooses to campaign on our backs, and this has nothing to do with our raises or raising the fare,” he said. “The Mayor knows the real problem. The problem is that [the city hasn’t] subsidized the system since 1980. The subsidies to the system are only 20 percent of what they used to give 20 years ago. He knows this for a fact.”

Mr. Bloomberg told reporters that he was glad there were no service slowdowns but maintained his position on the conflict.

“I understand how they want to get more,” he said. “The problem for the MTA is: where’s the money going to come from? The bottom line is they just don’t have it and until we can solve the problem of a real funding stream and making the capital improvements that we need to make things more efficient, we’re going to always have a problem there. And I have always thought, and I told their last union leader, that that was my position, that we’ve got to identify funding streams before they can make a settlement.”

Station Agent Marty Goodman, a former Local 100 executive board member and a vocal critic of the union’s current administration, believed that the union’s denouncing of the Mayor and support for Mr. Thompson was a distraction from the fight against the MTA’s legal challenge to the arbitration award.

“Much is being made of the Thompson campaign out of all of this,” he said. “Thompson, during the strike, urged us to go back to work. He may have been the only Democrat to do that. He’s never denounced the Taylor Law, so I don’t really think he’s the issue in it.”