Some Free Advice for the MTA and TWU

So, everyone appears to be reverting to their original bargaining positions before the strike and have taken everything off the table that may have already been agreed upon in the deal that the TWU voted down by a mere 7 votes (and I'm still wondering if there anyone even bothered with a recount).

One has to wonder who was negotiating this dispute because I can't recall any other example of a bargaining position so thorougly screwed up - on both the TWU and MTA sides.

For the MTA, their problems start with their inability to come clean about their fiscal position. Multiple sets of accounting books, unanticipated income from real estate taxes, and other fiscal accounting tricks doesn't engender trust. The MTA needs to engage in trust and confidence building measures.

If that means putting together a comprehensive plan to upgrade facilities that TWU workers use, then they should do so - for one thing improving restroom facilities throughout the system is an eminently sensible and responsible thing to do. And imagine the jobs that are involved in building out that system. New Yorkers would be eminently grateful for clean public restrooms. As would TWU workers.

The MTA should go further and improve its cleaning and safety programs within the subway system and at its railyards and bus depots. Fast tracking the purchase of new energy efficient buses and clean air equipment will also improve matters. Not only are these service improvements, but safety and health improvements for the transit workers.

In fact, these measures will go towards addressing some of the health and safety concerns of the TWU.

The TWU, on the other hand, has to understand that its destructive policies of striking against the MTA not only harms the MTA, but the City and the union in the long term. People will not respond kindly to threats of strikes and the union loses in the court of public opinion. And the union will need to understand that their illegal strike has consequences. They should not benefit from an illegal strike and then be able to get an even better deal than the one that the union rejected.

For starters, the union has to realize that they have to begin contributing to their health care benefits and pension plans. Both are luxuries that the taxpayers of New York cannot afford, and should not forced to pay over the threat of a strike.

And the union should be well advised that their workers were once required to provide a contribution for their pensions, but that was eliminated nearly 2 decades ago. That has meant that the state and MTA have had to make up the shortfall in the pension fund. It was ill advised then, and it's ill advised now to provide any expansion of benefits relating to the pension.

As it is, the union is facing the possibility that they will not be able to automatically collect union dues from transit workers. That's one of the penalties that can be imposed under the Taylor Law that prohibits public workers from striking.

On Jan. 10, the state's Public Employment Relations Board began the process for revoking dues checkoff by formally charging Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union with calling an illegal strike. Yesterday, the union responded by accusing the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of "extreme provocation that helped to cause the strike and prolonged the strike."

"Dues checkoff is absolutely indispensable," said David L. Gregory, a labor law professor at St. John's University. "If dues are suspended, frozen or sequestered, that's a radical move. It would fundamentally cripple the union."

Although the transit workers are required to pay dues to Local 100 under state law, in practice it is almost impossible to collect regular dues without payroll deductions. The union has set up a contingency plan under which members would be asked to pay dues automatically through electronic bank transfers, but union officials acknowledge that ensuring compliance among 33,700 workers would be a logistical nightmare.

The union's bargaining position is in a far worse position today than it was before the strike. The strike undermined their position, and there was no reason that the union couldn't agree to a deal like the one that was voted down before going on strike.

Fester's Place thinks that the MTA and State sought to use divide and conquer to win concessions from the union and break union solidarity.

Instead the divide and conquer strategy of creating a two tier worked force was utilized. It is not about money. This is an action over power. If the union agreed to create a two tiered workforce, it creates incentives for tensions and weaker collective action, thus weakening their coordination ability.

The problem actually lies with the union bosses who agreed to this plan. In fact, the TWU (and the firefighters and police unions before them) have repeatedly screwed the newer union members while preserving the rights of the older and tenured workers. The police union agreed to a deal that increased wages for everyone except new recruits. New recruits now see pay 25% less than what they would have received under the prior deal. That serves no one - who would be able to afford to work as a cop for $26,000 per year?

We see this happen time and time again. Tiered pension plans happen because the older workers are so entrenched and fixated on not losing anything that they jettison the workers who aren't there nearly as long to deals that were worse than if everyone was forced to pay just a bit more.

Consider the following: if 33,000 workers were forced to pay 1% towards health care benefits, that's the same as if 16,500 workers were forced to pay 2% and the others didn't have to contribute anything. Those 16,500 workers are in a far worse position vis-a-vis the non contributing workers. The same thing applies with the pension contributions. If everyone in the union pays their fair share towards these benfits and services, you maintain union solidarity.

What we've seen is Toussaint and his cronies give in to the factions that demand absolutely no change to the pension and benefits contributions - and try to get back money from pension contributions made in earlier deals in the form of refunds. The newer workers get no benefit from that deal.