Home Asides Bus drivers rehired, but MTA/TWU talks break down

Bus drivers rehired, but MTA/TWU talks break down

by Benjamin Kabak

According to a report in the Daily News, approximately 100 bus drivers who were given a pink slip two months are back on the job. Pete Donohue reports that these bus drivers were asked to return to work to “fill vacancies from retirements and promotions” and that the move to rehire these drivers wasn’t an unexpected one. “It’s good to see people back to work, especially with this economy,” TWU official J.P. Patafio said. “We never understood why they were laid off to begin with.”

Buried within the article though is a glimpse of some dismaying news from the labor front. Donohue says that attempts to renegotiate the contract between the TWU and the MTA have fallen apart. Although the authority offered to “maintain staffing levels if the union agreed to re-open the contract and grant longer-term concessions that would lower MTA costs,” the two sides could not reach an agreement. I have to believe the labor relations will grow further strained next year as the end of the TWU’s current three-year contract arrives.

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3 comments

oscar September 8, 2010 - 4:40 pm

i’m sure the TWU’s demands are quite reasonable.

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TLC commuter van pilot to launch Monday sans TWU :: Second Ave. Sagas September 9, 2010 - 3:41 pm

[…] legal ability to operate this privatized program, and more than 100 laid-off bus drivers were recently rehired. The TWU did not provide me with a comment by press time, but the Daily News via Twitter reports […]

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Nathanael September 12, 2010 - 11:06 pm

I hope the TWU will start to negotiate in good faith. Is the situation as bad as the steam railroad unions insisting on continuing to employ firemen after the switch to diesel and electric engines? I don’t know.

Maybe the LIRR unions will actually start negotiating in good faith some day too?

You can be sure Walder will behave both entirely legally and entirely reasonably; the unions in London are powerful and one doesn’t jerk them around. I hope the TWU realizes eventually that he’s actually trying to play fair with them; perhaps they’ve been burned by previous managers.

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