“Thousands of men and women work on the front lines of the MTA system every day to make sure millions of people can get to work safely,” Governor Cuomo said. “We need to ensure they stay safe as well. Transit Watch puts criminals on notice that if they assault a bus, subway or train employee, everyone who sees it happen is going to help put them in jail.”

Union leaders immediately praised the move. “This is a big win for transit workers, who face physical assaults, verbal abuse and threats every day on the job, and who have long felt that transit assaults are given a low priority,” TWU Local 100 President John Samuelsen said in a statement. “We very much appreciate Governor Cuomo’s immediate action to turn a good idea into reality virtually overnight.” The MTA, which is working on a plan to install safety partitions and security cameras in buses across the city, will begin promoting the new reward program soon.

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As the TWU/MTA stare-down continues, a minor arbitration award involving ATU workers could send some economic shockwaves heading our way while also offering an opportunity to disrupt the current negotiations. The award, issued earlier this week, concerns the period from Jan. 2009-Jan. 2012, the same three years covered by the crippling arbitration award issued for the TWU a few years back. Pete Donohue had a brief piece on the award which covers a few thousand bus drivers:

More than 3,000 MTA bus drivers and other workers will get 11% raises under a contract awarded by an arbitration panel.

The panel essentially gave the workers, represented by the Amalgamated Transit Union, the same deal 34,000 Transport Workers Union Local 100 members employed by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority won in arbitration three years ago. The ATU pact retroactively covers the period from January 2009 to this January.

The panel, in a 2-to-1 vote, said the MTA can afford the raises by tapping reserves, money slated for capital construction projects or savings from low interest rates. “While using some of these sources may be more difficult than others, the fact is that sources to pay the increase do exist,” the decision states.

For those interested in the entire decision, the 37-page explanation along with a short dissent is available here as a PDF, but Donohue’s summary is the point. Essentially, in a 2-1 decision, George Nicolau relied heavily on the decision authored a few years ago in the TWU case by John Zuccotti to reward the ATU with a retroactive raise. He spent pages talking about the arbitration request, a rather literal interpretation of the Taylor Law and the MTA’s current financial state. It’s one giant mess.

Essentially, Nicolau determined that “the public interest” is better off if the MTA takes some of its cash reserves that would normally go to cover weather emergencies and budget deficits that crop up over the year to give raises at a time when few other employees seeing their earnings increase. At worst, this pushes the MTA’s finances ever closer to a steeper fare hike; at best, it provides more ammo in an ongoing labor war.

The dissent was in fact highly critical of the award. “It casts a blind eye towards the catastrophic impacts that this devastating recession has imposed on the public,” Anita Miller, arbitrator and MTA Director of Labor Relations, wrote. “There is no balance in this Award between the expectations of the represented employees and the interests of the public. All of the undisputed intervening economic realities have been rendered essentially irrelevant in the minds of the majority. It simply is unfair to the public, which has already suffered through unprecedented service reductions and which is facing another fare increase in 2013.”

At this point, the award itself is what it is, but the whole process in which arbitrators ignore current economic conditions to find some justification for a wage increase serves as a reminder not to rush headlong into the abyss. The ATU feels empowered by their victory and so too does the TWU. “The panel sharply disagreed with the MTA’s cupboard-is-bare argument, asserting that the Authority could tap reserves, money slated for capital construction projects, and get savings from low interest rates through debt refinancing,” the larger union said. “Funny, these are just the points that TWU Local 100 has been making in our ongoing negotiations.”

Maybe the cupboard isn’t bare yet, but what it’s emptied, the people left footing the bill are the riders who don’t want to pay more and need the system to live, work and play in New York City. What public interests are being served here exactly anyway?

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As The Daily News reported today. Sen. Eric Adams of Brooklyn wants to arm transit workers with tasers, something most rank-and-file cops aren’t even permitted to carry in New York City. The TWU rushed to embrace this measure. “Equipping and training our members to responsibly use Tasers will end the assaults that are currently plaguing our members,” union head John Samuelsen said. “Additionally, it will act as a strong deterrent against crime against our riders on the buses and trains.”

Adams’ bill has rightfully languished in committee for a while, but he is amending it to allow bus drivers to carry tasers as well. In response, the TWU, reports Pete Donohue, will be featuring the bill at an upcoming conference on transit worker safety. But does this really sound like a good idea or just a political talking point? Giving cops tasers is generally a recipe for trouble; I can’t imagine how straphangers would feel with thousands of armed transit workers carrying these things.

The NYPD and the MTA, however, are not buying it, and can you blame them? “The MTA makes protecting our transit personnel a top priority in everything we do,” MTA chief Joe Lhota said. “However, the proposed legislation is the wrong way to go about protecting MTA employees. Asking them to carry weapons would cross the line into law enforcement, a function that is best left to the NYPD.”

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The TWU boss, in an letter to Joe Lhota which The Daily News obtained, calls upon the MTA to bring more employees to oversee platforms at crowded or dangerous stations. The authority has reduced these so-called station conductors from 100 to 40 over the past five years, and they could restore some order. “The platform is so narrow that if a person slips or trips there is a good chance they will be hit by an approaching train or fall onto the tracks,” he wrote.

Samuelsen might be onto something, but I wonder if he would accept my proposal: Bring aboard more station conductors by changing the job responsibilities of station agents to include platform duty during peak hours. This way, the MTA wouldn’t have to spend money it doesn’t have on staffing levels while at the same time, the authority would be developing a more productive work force. It would be a win for the MTA, a win for passengers and a win for the union as well.

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After losing an election to Samuelsen in 2009, Toussaint had faded from the scene, and in fact, he had moved down to D.C. for a few years. Within the past few months, when Samuelsen refused to threaten a strike, Toussaint moved back to Brooklyn to resume his track-shop job with the MTA, and many believe he is angling for a spot atop the leadership structure at Local 100. Toussaint in his interview with Mann slams Samuelsen for his approach toward negotiation. He wants a hardline, and he wants the MTA leadership to hear that even as they continue to threaten a net-zero wage increase.

For his part, Samuelsen shrugged off Toussaint’s words and presence. “Roger couldn’t mobilize 20 members to do anything after the 2005 strike,” Samuelsen said. “He couldn’t mobilize a bunch of kindergarten kids to get online to get cookies and milk, and yet he finds fit to criticize our mobilization in the last year.” Still, the former president’s militant tone, in light of the TWU’s embrace of the Occupy Wall Street movement, must have current TWU leadership watching their political backs.

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In essence, then, an organization with obligations to future retirees can choose one of two avenues: They can sacrifice the future to pay off costs now or they can attempt to build for those future obligations while paring down services today. After years of pursuing the first avenue, the MTA appears to be on the second course, but now TWU members looking to reclaim their old jobs (and argue for increased service as well) want the authority to forego fiscal sanity for more money today.

Here’s the TWU’s essential argument: The MTA has recognized that it will one day have $12 billion in retiree benefits and health care costs to pay out, and the agency has begun to set aside some money in a fund for those future obligations. The fund has grown in spurts over the past decade, but it now totals $500 million. The TWU, in a flyer and at MTA Board meeting protests, says the authority should use this money to increase worker salaries and restore service cuts.

Yesterday, Occupy Wall Street representatives and TWU officials railed on the MTA Board for what amounts to a semblance of fiscal responsibility. “The transit workers serve the 99 percent,” Tony Murphy, a member of Occupy for Jobs, said. “It is beyond ludicrous for the M.T.A. to claim a retirees fund as an excuse to deny justice to the transit workers.”

With some TWU members calling for the return of station agents — a dubious idea considering the jump in ridership last year even as station agent staffing levels decreased — union officials toed a hard line. “Enough is enough,” Maurice Jenkins, a TWU Local 100 vice president, said. “Utilize the GASB funds.”

The MTA had other thoughts on the matter. “We are doing everything we can to work with the fragile budget conditions that we have,” MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota said. “Their reference to money that’s squired away to pay for retiree health care—we have a $13.2 billion unfunded liability, of which we have put against it $470 million. It’s nowhere near enough. It’s a problem, and we need to continue to fund the funds so that we can make sure that the retiree benefits are there when the retirees of the MTA need it.”

Another Board member echoed Lhota’s take. “You’re essentially borrowing money that actuarially you’re told that you need to have to protect people’s benefits in the future,” Allen Cappelli said. “So it’s not a fiscally prudent thing to do. It’s the kind of practice that gets government agencies into trouble. And then if you run into a crisis and you don’t have the money, then you’ve got to raise fairs and cut services, and we’re trying to avoid that kind of instability.”

Now, I don’t begrudge the TWU for searching for ways to secure raises for their members; that’s what a good union is supposed to do. But while most unions are willing to sacrifice their future members for the current staff, here, the TWU is concerned with current payments without keeping an eye on what they have coming to them in the future. The MTA is, for worse, saddled with high levels of future obligations thanks to a low retirement age and a generous benefits package. Union members can’t enjoy those luxuries while asking the MTA to tap into a fund to pay those benefits now. If so, the losers will be the fare-paying public who will be saddled with these costs one way or another.

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Spivack, who has won himself a free monthly MetroCard for spotting this grotesque rodent, said the creature was still living when he snapped the photo. “I was waiting for the D train when I saw something on the platform,” he said to The Daily News. “The thing wasn’t moving but it was alive. I got as close as I dared to get.”

While the TWU’s contest brings visual attention to the rat infestation in the subway system, Albany is slowly attempting to do something to address the problem. The bill to ban food underground moved out of transportation committee by a 16-3 vote although nine of the ayes came with reservations. The bill now sits with the State Senate Finance Committee.

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The report, released on Monday and available here as a PDF, is framed as a grand what if. What if, as has routinely happened between the two sides, the MTA and TWU must go to arbitration in front of the Public Employment Relations Board to settle their differences? How would the PERB decide in a binding case?

Using the same five criteria PERB members must consider, the CBC analyzed the TWU’s current situation and the MTA’s financial crisis. Overall, they found the heavy rail operators and bus operators and maintenance staff are already the highest paid in the country and are often better off than New York City’s private employees when it comes to wages, health insurance and pension benefits. As TWU employees enjoyed raises of over 11 percent from 2009-2011, New York’s private employees saw, on average, pay bumps of barely one percent.

Furthermore, TWU compensation has “consistently exceeded inflation.” Since 1999, TWU raises have risen by 47 percent while inflation has increased by 38 percent. Over the past three-year contract, the raises have outpaced inflation by nearly 100 percent.

To compound the problem, the MTA is not in a position to suffer through more wage increases, the CBC notes. “Failure to achieve this [net-zero] target will widen the MTA’s operating deficit: each one point increase awarded to the TWU would increase costs by $42 million, if applied to setting wages elsewhere in the system. “An award along the lines of projected inflation – 2.2 percent in 2012 and 2 percent thereafter – would open a budget gap of $92.4 million in 2012, $176.4 million in 2013, and $256.4 million in 2014, approximately 2.25% of operating expenses,” the report says. “Since the MTA does not have the financial ability to pay any wage increases awarded with a greater cost than ‘net zero,’ riders are likely to bear the burden in the form of increased fares or reduced service.”

The net-zero wage increase then may be in the public good, the Commission believes. The MTA must, they write, have resources to “provide reliable service, preventing fares from becoming burdensome to riders, and securing decent compensation and work conditions for worker.” Efficient operations can accomplish this goal, and to that end, the CBC says, the TWU and MTA may have a serious discussion on one-person train operations. Ultimately, something as bare as work rule reform must be accepted by both sides.

In the end, the CBC issues a call for a net-zero wage increase. They write:

The findings indicate that awarding “net?zero” wage increases is fair and appropriate given the current economic climate, the fiscal outlook of the MTA, the burdens recently placed upon riders, and the high relative and overall compensation level of TWU employees.   State and City governments have set a three?year wage freeze, with added employee responsibility for health insurance costs, as the pattern for settling expired public employee contracts.  Applying this pattern to the TWU contract would not compromise the standard of living of TWU workers; the inflation rate is projected to be about 2 percent, and a three?year wage freeze will not undo the real wage growth that TWU employees have realized over the last decade.  Increasing employee responsibility for health care costs, through increased premium?sharing or salary contributions, is also appropriate given the relatively modest contributions made by TWU employees as compared to other public and private employees.

Can it happen though? The TWU has not shown a public willingness to accept a net-zero increase in labor spending. Union leaders know such a plan would lead to stagnant wages or a work-force reduction, and that’s a tough pill for union members to swallow. For the public though, affordable and reliable subway service may just depend on it.

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The New York Post reported this morning that the TWU had “won” a key concession from the MTA. Subway drivers may receive three days off following any incident, fatal or not, in which their train strikes a person. Furthermore, conductors could get time off if they observe someone fall between cars or slip between the subway and platform edge. In the past, conductors did not receive such time off, and drivers had to be behind the wheel of a fatal accident to qualify. “Protecting conductors and operators from these horrible incidents underground was one of the main goals,” The Post’s source said.

As TWU President John Samuelsen reacted to an MTA leak, so too did the authority react to a TWU leak. “It is the MTA’s policy not to negotiate through the press,” MTA Chairman Joe Lhota responded in turn. “However, we will not allow inaccurate or leaked statements regarding negotiations to stand as fact. Today’s New York Post story is harmful to the collective bargaining process.” It is unclear if The Post report is accurate or what the TWU may give up in return for these protections, and despite the tense war of words over media reports, sources confirm to me that neither party anticipates a strike even if a deal is not yet on the horizon.

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Meanwhile, after two weeks of stewing over “bad faith negotiations” brought about when the TWU objected to an apparent leak of the MTA’s demands, the two sides will resume formal talks on Thursday. While the TWU’s outrage over the MTA’s supposed negotiating tactics has stalled forward progress, MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota says that he and TWU president John Samuelsen have maintained an open line of communication over the past few weeks. A deal though is still not on the horizon, but neither is a strike.

For a full glimpse at the MTA’s demands, check out this pdf. They range from benefit reductions to operational improvements, but OPTO, sadly, is not among them.

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