Archive for Transit Labor
Feb
26
With money tight, has OPTO’s time come?
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Throughout the world, major transit systems operate with just one person in charge of each train. In London and Hong Kong, Moscow and Paris, one-person train operation has become the norm. Using CCTVs and modern-day technology, one person is in charge of driving the trains, opening and closing the doors, making announcements and generally overseeing the trains. These systems run smoothly and have realized significant cost savings by cutting out a generally unnecessary employee from every train.
In New York, though, OPTO has had a tortured history defined by tensions between the MTA and the TWU. For years, the MTA has had the capacity to run OPTO routes. The L line has been OPTO-compliant since 2005, and with wider train control booths now in every train, nearly every other line could be converted into a one-person route. Yet, at every turn, it has become a major labor battle.
In 2008, Roger Toussaint nearly agreed to allow the MTA to move ahead with OPTO plans, and as late as May, Transit was moving ahead with OPTO plans. But two events put this off the table. First, the TWU’s rank-and-file nearly revolted. As a TWU Contract Bulletin from last year notes, many union members believed allowing OPTO to be the equivalent of “sell[ing] us all out.” Next, when the MTA and the TWU had to go to arbitration, the MTA withdrew its OPTO proposals. Much ink has been spilled over the “why” of it, but many consider that to be a mistake.
Now, the agency is going to try to eliminate conductors in order to save money. According to Pete Donohue of the Daily News, MTA officials have “quietly” asked transit leaders to reconsider their stance on one-person train operations. Neither the MTA nor the TWU heads commented for the article, but as the agency faces a potential $750 million shortfall, OPTO is clearly an idea whose time has come.
In an oversimplified world, OPTO, if implemented tomorrow and if the agency could fire all of its conductors, would save the authority approximately $170 million. I arrived at that figure by pulling the 2008 salaries from the Public Employees Payroll Database the state has established. The agency employees 3024 conductors, and all but 157 operate trains in revenue service.
That is, of course, not a completely accurate calculation. The MTA would have to pay its train drivers a few dollars more per hour to serve as the lone conductor/driver, and Transit would have to outfit it stations by moving the CCTVs currently in place in the center of platforms to the front of the trains. The one-time costs might be substantial, but the savings would be realized on an annual basis.
Even still, union members would object, and the MTA would probably have to overhaul their work rules. A very thorough comment left by a Transit employee on an August post about OPTO delves into the various problems with the current system and implementing one-person train control. Still, it authority owes it to its customers to try to cut costs via this path.
In the end, OPTO would simply give the MTA more flexibility. It could run shorter trains every ten minutes overnight at nearly cost to the agency as it now runs longer trains every twenty minutes, and this proposal would truly help spread the pain. In an editorial accompanying Donohue’s piece, the Daily News argued that the TWU should either give up its pay hike to save jobs or enjoy its raises while suffering through layoffs. It’s a devil’s choice for union leaders hellbent on saving every single job, but as the MTA sees its precariously financial state decline even further, it might be time once again for a push toward OPTO.
Feb
24
Bloomberg questions retirees’ free rides
Posted by: | CommentsIf New York City’s students won’t enjoy the benefits of free MetroCards, Mayor Bloomberg wants to know why retired transit workers should too. As Tom Namako reported earlier this week, Bloomberg, on his weekly radio show, questioned why retired TWU members get to enjoy the benefits of free transit for life at a cost of nearly $16 million annually to the MTA amidst a budget crunch for the authority. “I’m just pointing that out. It turns out that MTA is required to give the TWU retirees a free MetroCard once they begin receiving their pension payments,” he said.
Both MTA and TWU leaders downplayed the costs. A Metro-North official noted that most did not use their free passes during peak hours and said that the MTA “[doesn't] see it as a center of revenue loss.” John Samuelsen, head of the TWU, questioned the Mayor’s dollar figure. “We have retirees that live all over the county, like in Florida, and they certainly don’t ride the subway,” he said. “They worked their whole life in the transit system, and they earned those passes.” Considering how he campaigned on a platform of MTA reform, the Mayor, long silent on the MTA’s current financial crisis, is shooting blanks here.
Feb
24
Walder vows layoffs in 60 days as unions protest
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Following this morning’s meeting, Jay Walder spent a few minutes talking to reporters about the upcoming layoffs soon to impact the MTA. The personnel reductions will go into effect in 60 days, and the 1000 jobs on the chopping block will be the first in what could be a wave of layoffs this year.
The agency, said Walder, is now facing a $750 million deficit that has emerged since December, and the agency looks to save money both for its 2010 fiscal year and going forward, it will have to learn to operate as a leaner organization. “The reality is that the vast majority of our costs are labor,” Walder said at his press conference. “[The MTA's savings] will come in the form of layoffs.”
For now, the first round of cuts for New York City Transit will target approximately 500 station agents and 600 administrative personnel. The Long Island Rail Road announced that it would shave 150 jobs as well. There, 90 administrative positions will go, and 60 engineers and conductors will lose their jobs as well. “My sense is that there will be additional staff reductions from consolidations that the MTA will be focused on,” LIRR President Helena Williams said to Newsday today.
During his press conference, Walder repeatedly stressed how the MTA will follow agreed-upon collective bargaining provisions for layoffs. “We will be following all of the negotiated arrangements,” he said more than once. According to a Pete Donohue article, the TWU’s agreement with the MTA once had a no-layoffs provisions, but it was “traded away” during the 2002 labor negotiations. The MTA does not have to offer severance to its unionized employees, and the severance package for the axed administrative personnel will be based on senior and will not exceed $20,000, Walder said.
The TWU, meanwhile, is attempting to evaluate its position. According to a report this morning in amNew York, the MTA offered to avert these layoffs in exchange for a pay freeze, but the TWU rejected that offer. After engaging in a legal fight for its raises — raises that are costing the MTA $100 million in money it doesn’t have this year — the TWU is not going to give those up so quickly.
Yet at a time when agency finances are sour and everyone else is paying the price, the TWU is celebrating its raises and vowing a fight. In a website announcement informing its members of higher salaries, TWU President John Samuelsen promised to combat the layoffs. “I realize that it has been a long and frustrating wait” for the raises, he said. “But the wait is over. We can now move on to devote our full attention to current battle to preserve transit jobs and service, and to prevent the MTA from balancing its self-inflicted budget wounds on the backs of Local 100 members and New York’s working families.”
Considering how the MTA is balancing its Albany-inflicted budget wounds on the backs of every single transit-dependent New Yorker, that’s a bold claim by Samuelsen. Still, I would expect nothing less from a union president who must protect his members’ interests, jobs and money.
These cuts, though, are just the first of many. During his press conference, Walder did not beat around the bush. As the service cuts are implemented, he said, the MTA will probably have to lay off more workers, unionized or not. The agency is planning to overhaul the way it does business administratively, and unless Albany is willing to step in and do what it must, we will soon see an MTA operating with fewer services and far fewer employees.
Feb
19
TWU roundup: A legal fight, bus mirrors and dirty stations
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I’ve been sitting on a few TWU-related stories over the past week, and none of them are long enough to warrant a separate post. So in the grand style of the link roundups we post periodically at River Ave. Blues, I present a TWU link roundup.
‘Pushy’ conductor wins legal fight
Our first story comes to us from Pete Donohue. He reports that the New York Court of Appeals ruled that a subway conductor who was accused of pushing a passenger after a heated exchange of words in 2006 cannot be fired. The MTA had initially tried to fire Jack Grissett after he fired a homophobic slur at a passenger and then, in Donohue’s words, “‘forcefully’ put his hands on the man.” At the time, an arbitration panel had recommended a two-month suspension without pay, and the Court determined that the arbitration ruling should stand and that the MTA owes Grissett backpay as well. The MTA had won at both the Supreme Court and Appellate level.
While Donohue and his sources portray this to be an example of wasteful MTA expenditures on legal fees, I have a different take on it. It reaches more to the power of the unions and the MTA’s inability to fire its employees acts most workplaces would not tolerates. As PSAs throughout the system remind us, if a rider assaults an MTA employee, the penalty could be up to seven years in jail. Yet, if an MTA employee is found to be guilty of similar behavior, a two-month suspension is a sufficient punishment.
Bus mirrors inadequate, says drivers
According to a Heather Haddon report in amNew York, a few express bus drivers say that replacement mirrors are inadequate and could put pedestrians at risk. Union leaders claim that the MTA’s decision to replace broken mirrors with “a more affordable model” is a flawed one because the mirrors do not allow drivers to see people on the streets or those running for the bus. While Transit officials say the mirrors “meet or exceed” safety specifications, one bus depot in Brooklyn fielded 20 complaints last month alone.
With funds tight, station cleaning shifts go unfilled
For the last few years, the MTA has threatened to eliminate station cleaning crews as a way of saving money. The current setup, Transit officials have claimed, is an inefficient use of manpower. Now, TWU leaders say that cleaning shifts are going unfilled. According to another Heather Haddon article, Transit has let cleaning shifts go unfilled when workers call in sick. She writes, “On a Monday earlier this month, 138 cleaning shifts had vacancies, with less than a fifth of them getting filled through overtime, according to transit documents.”
For the MTA, this is one way to save on overtime pay, but for the rest of us, we’re left with stations dirtier and grimier than usual. Meanwhile, despite promises from MTA heads to improve station cleanliness, the agency plans to save $6 million by eliminating 83 cleaners this year. Perhaps those naming rights deals should resemble Adopt-a-Station plans instead with the money going toward cleaning efforts.
Feb
08
Bloomberg: No free rides for anyone
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As the MTA rushes headlong toward economic Armageddon, free rides have become a major political issue. In the face of a lack of political support, the MTA — rightly so — has refused to fund student transit. While the state has pledged some money and the city is trying to find the funds for the Student MetroCard program, the authority is holding students hostage as collateral for the potential of a political rescue.
Yet, as these machinations go ahead behind the scenes, Mayor Bloomberg has called for an end to all free rides. If New York City students can’t have free rides, said, the Mayor, neither should MTA employees. Pete Donohue and Kate Lucadamo of the Daily News had more:
The mayor called into question the policy of giving retired transit workers free bus and subway rides since free and reduced cards for city students are on the chopping block.
“Does it make any sense to give retirees passes for the rest of their lives and not give our kids passes so they can go to school? No,” Bloomberg said during his weekly radio show. “It’s pretty hard to argue that that is an intelligent policy.”
About 20,000 former retired bus, subway and commuter train workers get travel passes for their twilight years as a retirement benefit. Some 585,000 students also have free or discounted MetroCards – but they could lose them because of the MTA’s budget woes.
Bloomberg here is picking on a benefit that has been in the TWU contract for years, and, as expected, union officials are none too pleased. “After years of fiscal irresponsibility by the state government and the MTA, Mayor Bloomberg wants to hang the current fiscal woes around the necks of the elderly, our retirees, and that’s not right,” current TWU head John Samuelsen said.
Of course, if the world were in two shades, this would be a fight in shades of gray. Bloomberg is right in picking on the MTA’s giveaways for retirees, but Samuelsen has a great point too. The city — and state — simply has not lived up to its funding expectations. Fifteen years ago, the city promised to help fund free student rides, and yet, since 1995, the city hasn’t upped its monetary contributions at all. The $45 million the city paid last year is the same $45 million it paid in the mid 1990s.
So what to do? The workers who toil for decades in harsh conditions deserve some benefits after they retire. Do those benefits include free MetroCards along with health insurance and a solid pension plan? That’s not a bad question to ask, but until the city can find more money for student cards, it’s not one Mayor Bloomberg should be asking.
Jan
28
New TWU head gearing up for layoff battle
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Recently elected TWU Local 100 President John Samuelsen poses outside of MTAHQ on Wednesday. (Photo via the Daily News)
As part of the MTA’s planned service cuts, the authority is trying to spread the pain around. We know that Transit is trying to minimize the disruptive nature of their necessary cuts. We know that the MTA’s administration budget will be reduced by 10 percent and that everyone will have to take a paycut. We also know that the agency is going to try to eliminate 700 union jobs. The TWU will not, according to new president John Samuelsen, go down without a fight.
Speaking in front of MTA Headquarters on Wednesday shortly before the authority’s board met to discuss the service cuts, Samuelsen lobbed some charges at the executives. “This document was obviously written by accountants, bean counters, people who obviously don’t ride our system and who don’t understand that these cuts are negatively impacting hundreds of thousands of New York’s working families and their children,” Samuelsen said. “They’re clueless.”
Samuelsen, according to Pete Donohue, also called upon the MTA to eschew their countdown clock program in favor of covering operating deficits. It is this attitude that will result in a transit policy and a transit system stuck in neutral, and as we know, the agency as no plans right now to shift any capital money to cover its operating deficit.
At a time when the MTA is suffering in the eyes of a skeptical public, his rhetoric rings a certain bell. He knows that the MTA’s proposed service cuts were written by people very much in tune with the system. That’s why the proposal is designed to limit the number of passengers and riders it impacts. He knows that MTA officials aren’t clueless. But he also knows that he’s going to have to fight for the jobs. Right now, despite the fact that wage increases for TWU workers is contributing to the MTA’s deficit gap, Samuelsen is clearly winning the war of the words.
On a more practical level, though, Samuelsen and new MTA CEO and Chair Jay Walder are going to try to work together to address the MTA’s deficit. City Hall News’ Chris Bragg profiled Samuelsen yesterday, and his piece adds a level of complexity missing in the Daily News’ coverage of the TWU head’s public comments.
Samuelsen and Walder recently met for the first time, and the two have pledged, according to Bragg, to work together. Walder — known for being hard on labor during his days in London — had a more optimistic assessment of the potential relationship between the two men. “He has pledged to [work together], and I have pledged to do so,” he said. “But we’re both new to our jobs, so we’re finding our way.” But Samuelsen countered, “We have diametrically opposite positions on a whole array of issues. It’s not going to be personally hostile. But we’re not going to just roll over, either.”
Samuelsen is taking over the TWU after a few tumultuous years of labor relations with the MTA. Roger Toussaint’s decision to strike in 2005 cost the union dearly, and Samuelsen vows to avoid making the same mistakes of capitulation. Still, some observers think the two new heads will see a thaw in their early discourse. “Roger Toussaint came into office with a reputation as a firebrand kind of guy too,” Bill Henderson, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, said to Bragg. “Eventually, the relationship changed.”
Right now, Samuelsen’s job is to save 700 of the 37,000 workers over whom he is in charge from getting the axe. He’ll try everything in his power to save 1.8 percent of his workforce from the unemployment lines because he knows what giving into the MTA will mean. As the authority fights for its money, the war — one that will probably end on a reconciliatory note — is just getting started.
Jan
20
For Walder, labor costs an 800-pound gorilla in the room
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When MTA CEO and Chairman Jay Walder pledged last Friday to reform the way the MTA does business, he stressed the redundancies inherent in the way the transit organization is set up. There are, he said, 92 different public phone numbers and five call centers fielding complaints from the public. Over 5000 workers perform administrative tasks, and many of those jobs overlap. “There will,” he said, “be layoffs.”
Since his speech on Friday, Walder has received qualified phrase from those watching. The Daily News urged every government official to strike a similar tone, and transit activists were equally enthusiastic about Walder’s priorities. “The speech,” Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign said, “was a candid assessment of the financial challenges the MTA faces and of the agency’s commitment to tackling them, such as lowering hundred of millions in administrative, inventory and overtime costs.”
At the time, Walder skirted around the issue of the MTA’s labor relations. “Our unions must be active partners,” he said but refrained from going into detail. After all, at a time when the MTA could least afford it, its largest union had just been awarded a three-year raise, and the agency’s decision to appeal the arbitration result had left many at the TWU bitter toward the authority.
Yet, some would prefer to see Walder, with proper political support, tackle the union and the MTA’s labor cost problem head on. Nicole Gelinas, who has made exploding pension costs her fight, is one of those people, and in yesterday’s Post, she offered up her take on the MTA’s cost problem:
Here are some specifics. The MTA spends $6.4 billion a year on current-worker wages and benefits. A unionized city transit worker earns nearly $94,000 a year, including more than $26,000 in benefits. The unionized commuter-rail worker earns even more — well above $120,000.
Nor is it just union jobs. The average white-collar worker at NYC Transit and Metro-North earns well above $120,000, too. And LIRR administrators beat them by a mile, topping $142,000 each. (Patronage, anyone?)
MTA labor relations aren’t white-collar vs. blue-collar — but everyone against the taxpayers.The savings Walder laid out are worthy. But cutting, say, 10 percent from administrative personnel would yield just $90 million — a rounding error in the authority’s $12 billion budget. Saving 10 percent in union labor costs, on the other hand (including pensions over time), would yield a much heftier $546 million, because the union workforce is much bigger.
The MTA has long tried doing this in the cooperative “let’s work with our labor partners” way for years — and we’re still waiting for results. What riders need is for Walder to call for full support — from Paterson and the Legislature — for a full labor overhaul. Workers must pay more for health care, and future workers must pay more for pensions, saving hundreds of millions. (Instead, the new contract for subway and bus workers has them paying less toward retirement.)
Gelinas’ basic point is a sound one. From top to bottom, from management to track workers, from blue collar to white, the MTA’s compensation scales are crippling the organization. It’s bureaucratic flow chart makes no sense, and its willingness to give away perks have driven up labor costs in every sense. Cutting from MTAHQ will save some money, but the rising tide of pensions and health care costs will sink all ships.
So what is to be done? In this pro-labor city, it’s tough to tackle the unions. They enjoy public and political support, and workers’ rights shouldn’t be eroded as is. But as some point, the MTA will be unable to pay, and everyone — the riding public, the train workers, the desk jockeys — will lose.
Jan
19
MTA to appeal year three of TWU arbitration award
Posted by: | CommentsAccording to the Daily News, the MTA is giving up on part of its appeal of the TWU arbitration award while keeping another part of it — the third year of raises — alive. Pete Donohue reports that the MTA will honor two-thirds of the arbitration award, and TWU workers will now enjoy a retroactive four percent raise for 2009 and a four percent raise in 2010. The agency, however, will seek to have an appeals court overturn the third year of raises which guarantee a 3.5 percent increase in 2011. The agency will also seek to quash part of the award that lowers employee contributions to health care and raises the MTA’s obligations. According to Donohue, this decision to pay will cost the agency approximately $100 million this year.
As expected, labor union leaders were none too pleased with this development. John Samuelsen contined to bluster about this appeal and said that workers, who are getting eight percent in raises in a bad economy and at a time when few private-sector employees are enjoying raises, aren’t happy with the news. Still, if MTA Chair and CEO Jay Walder is serious about cutting costs, addressing the MTA’s rising tide of labor and pension obligations must be a part of that effort. The workers won’t like it, but the agency will continue to be hindered by those costs without some sort of compensation reform. More on that later.
Jan
14
Samuelsen, TWU to fight any layoffs
Posted by: | CommentsAs the MTA gears up to consider service cuts across the board, they will inevitably look to reduce staffing levels at all levels. Already, MTA CEO and Chairman Jay Walder has pledged to trim some of the management fat, and he may look to ask the transit agencies’ various unions to suffer through employee cuts as well. The TWU’s new leadership, though, has pledged to fight any layoffs. New president John Samuelsen has appointed his rival Curtis Tate to head up the TWU’s political action committee, and he vowed to unite a fractured union in the face of potential job losses. “Infighting has crippled us,” Samuelsen said to the Daily News. “I’m looking to unify the union and get ready to face off against the MTA and the threat of layoffs.”
This is, of course, a not unexpected result. After all, one of the union’s main roles is to defend its workers’ job. but it’s a rather confrontational one this early in the process. The MTA’s deficit is coming about, in part, because of guaranteed union raises over the next three years, and the agency is going to be cutting services — from subway and bus lines to personnel and everything in between — across the board. If the TWU is fighting, in the face of public discontent over service cuts, for every job, the average straphanger may not be too sympathetic to the union’s plight and will probably side with no one.
One day, the MTA and TWU will have to resolve their differences and come together for the best interests of both sides. A broke MTA won’t be able to pay its workers, and a union willing to fight to the death at every mention of bad news will find it tough to win allies.
Dec
23
MTA holding up arbitrator Zuccotti’s union donation
Posted by: | CommentsWhen former MTA CEO and Executive Director Elliot Sander opted to head to arbitration with the TWU, apparently, he agreed via handshake to donate John Zuccotti’s salary to the TWU’s Widows and Orphans Fund. This revelation — a clear conflict of interests — did not come to light until after Zuccotti sided with the union in the arbitration dispute, and now, the MTA is holding up payment of the donation. According to Pete Donohue, new MTA CEO and Chair Jay Walder and the rest of the authority’s board have asked MTA Inspector General Barry Kluger to review the circumstances surrounding this handshake agreement.
I’m not really sure what recourse the MTA has here. There is a clear ethics issue here, and Zuccotti, a senior counsel at Weil, Gotshal, should have recognized that before proposing this deal with Sander. Yet, the MTA may not have much of a choice and could instead just be further antagonizing the TWU over something the current leadership cannot control. As always, stay tuned.
