Awaiting Approval

The TWU board approved a tentative agreement with the MTA, which included the following terms:

The agreement calls for transit workers to pay 1.5 percent of their wages toward the premiums, cutting into the raises they receive. That comes on top of the fines of slightly more than $1,000 that most transit workers face for participating in last week's illegal transit strike.

The settlement calls for raises of 3 percent in the deal's first year, 4 percent in the second year and 3.5 percent in the third year. The subway and bus workers' current base pay averages $47,000 a year, and with overtime, their average yearly earnings total $55,000.

The 37-month deal would push the deadline for the next contract into Jan. 15, 2009 - after the holiday shopping season. That's a significant step, but was the strike worth it given what was approved through continued negotiations?

I think not.

Sure, the MTA didn't get the union to budge on adjusting the pension or retirement age, but the MTA did get the union to agree to kick in a higher percentage of health care costs. The union did get the MTA to agree that Martin Luther King Jr. day is a paid holiday, and women will not be forced to take sick time for pregnancies.

Most of all, most New Yorkers realized that the union was already well compensated for their jobs, and the griping about the pensions and retirement ages didn't wear well among most New Yorkers who would kill to have those kinds of benefits.

The New York Post reports that some workers hired in the 1980s may receive a one-time cash payout for contributions made to the pension before changes were enacted by the Legislature to eliminate the worker contributions. The payout is dependent upon Legislative action.

A Post op-ed notes that the health care contributions are a huge win for the State and City because it sets the groundwork for finally requiring other union workers to kick in contributions towards health care and their benefits.

Sometimes it takes baby steps before fiscal sanity can be imposed on the unions and government agencies involved, but the strike was still a loser for all involved. The union could potentially have gained more through additional negotiations than by striking for three days - the lost wages, penalties, and fines will cut into whatever raises are seen by workers and the ill-will generated by the strike will carry over. In fact, Toussaint and the union bosses screwed over their current workers bigtime:

Ironically, it requires all transit workers to chip in for health insurance, while the offer on the table before the strike — hiking pension contributions to 6 percent from 2 percent — would have applied only to new hires.

So: Under the old offer, no current transit worker would have lost any benefits; now, they'll be forced to cough up something for their health costs.

Nice work, Roger.

No wonder folks first learning of this deal are wondering what they actually gained by striking. Transit workers at TWU Local 100 really need to reconsider their leadership going forward. Is this the kind of leader that you want representing you at the bargaining table? One that not only can't deliver on his promises (and Roger repeatedly said "trust me" to his union), but that actually costs all of his workers more in out of pocket costs now and in the future.

UPDATE:
The NYT is doing its best to analyze the transit strike news to give the union favorable treatment.

But now, a day after details of an agreement between the transit workers and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority were spelled out, Roger Toussaint, the union's president, seems to have emerged in a far better position than seemed likely just a few days ago.

Mr. Toussaint, whose back appeared to be against the wall last week, can boast of a tentative 37-month contract that meets most of his goals, including raises above the inflation rate and no concessions on pensions. Indeed, several fiscal and labor experts said yesterday that Mr. Toussaint and his union appeared to have bested the transit authority in their contract dispute.

The authority did not come away empty-handed, however, as it obtained a major concession: For the first time, the 33,700 transit workers will pay a portion of their health insurance premiums.

But if there is a real winner in the walkout that hobbled the city at the height of the holiday season, it is the union members who went out on strike, and the man who led them.

Only problem is that there's plenty of tangible evidence that the paper itself has reported that shows that the union leadership screwed up royally and did no one any good by striking.

In fact, many of the workers said the contract only deepened their ambivalence about the 60-hour transit strike last week, which ended when the union president, Roger Toussaint, agreed to resume talks with the authority. Outside the Michael J. Quill Depot in Manhattan, named for the man who led the union from 1934 to 1966, workers debated whether the strike had been effective.

"It's a bum deal," said Richard Smith, 37, a bus cleaner. "We are still stuck, staying right above the rising waters with inflation."

Mr. Smith and several other workers said they collected substantial overtime pay. He said that the health care contribution should be only a proportion of base pay based on a 40-hour week, and not net income, as the proposed contract now calls for.

Michael Tutrone, who represents bus workers in Manhattan and the Bronx as one of 15 division chairmen in Local 100, noted that most workers would pay at least $1,000 in fines for engaging in an illegal strike. He also noted that on the eve of the strike, the authority offered the same wage package as the one in the final settlement, and asserted that the new health care contribution opens the door for future increases.

"What we came back for was everything that was on the table before the strike," he said. "These guys are only interested in the food on the table for their families, and this deal doesn't help them with any of that."

No, it doesn't help the rank and file one bit. It didn't help the rank and file to send them on strike right before the holiday either. But we'll never know what could have been negotiated between the union and the MTA.

Let's get this straight. Toussaint led the union into an illegal strike - and triggered mandatory penalties and fines under the Taylor Law. These fines, which amount to at least $3 million for the union itself, taps out the union's strike fund. Workers are going to get hit in the pocketbook for six days worth of wages lost (a 2 for 1 penalty for each day off the job). And there's no telling just how much the health care contribution will end up costing workers over time, especially in future negotiations. Further, it sheds new light on the extravagent pension and retirement benefits afforded to transit workers and the Legislature may come under new pressure to reform the system though it's a longshot given union pressure on politicians.

Prior Coverage: A Deal In Sight?
Tallying the Toll
Winners and Losers
Strike Over?
Seeing The Humor in Striking
Three Strikes and You're Out?
Rogering New York
A Pox On Both Their Houses
The Pension Gap
The TWU to NYC: We're Gonna Strike
Taking Sides in the Transit Strike

Technorati: toussant, toussaint, strike, nyc, transit strike.