The Cowardly Lion

The deal worked out between the MTA and the TWU includes a huge sweetener provision - giving a one-time 'refund' to more than half the transit workers for pension contributions made at a time when the transit workers were required to contribute a percentage of their income towards the pension fund.

Governor Pataki should make sure that this aspect of the deal is killed. There is no justifiable reason for the transit workers to get this money back. It not only undermines the solvency of the pension fund, but it reduces the burden of the Taylor Law fines imposed when the union went on an illegal three-day strike.

I just don't see him having the courage to stand up and do the right thing fiscally or politically. Even though he's not running for Governor again, he has to provide political cover to other politicians not to mention his own potential ambitions for higher office.

Complicating the matter is confusion over the cost. The authority believes the refunds will cost about $132 million up front, or the equivalent of about $13 million a year over 11 years. Union negotiators have asserted that total refunds could exceed $200 million.

In 2001, when Mr. Pataki vetoed a bill that would have provided the refunds, an actuary hired by the union estimated that the refunds would cost the authority $7.5 million a year, and the authority put the figure at $165 million in total.

The question of cost is complex because the New York City Employees' Retirement System would pay most of the refunds and be reimbursed by the authority. The ultimate cost will be determined by actuaries, who make estimations using such variables as the longevity of pensioners and the amount workers have borrowed from the pension plan.

Neither the authority nor the union would publicly comment on the pension proposal yesterday, citing an agreement that neither side would gloat about the deal or portray it as a clear-cut victory for either side.

In his veto message in 2001, Mr. Pataki wrote that "the costly benefit that this bill would confer should be the project of collective bargaining negotiations" and that "imposing unbudgeted costs of this magnitude on the M.T.A. would not be prudent in light of the budgetary and fiscal challenges that the M.T.A. currently faces." In the settlement, the authority and the union agreed to "make every effort" to have such a bill enacted by the first week of July.

Prior coverage: Dissecting the Transit Deal
Awaiting a Deal
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.