The MTA and the TWU are at odds over pay increases for the city’s transit workers. This is the first snag in the negotiations in advance of the TWU’s contract expiring in January. Both sides are hoping to avoid another transit strike.
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Woah. 4% a year isn’t sufficient for the MTA union because firefighters got 8%?
I think I’m in the wrong line of work.
That’s not what is being said. All of the major unions received %4 a year increases with there new contracts this year so the employees of the subways and buses say that they should get the same.
Sounds fair to me. The ridership is up and the staffing is down thats called productivity. Even during the last ocntract negotiations when the MTA had over a 1 billion dollar surplus they couldn’t get the level of pay increases that all of the other major unions have been able to get in a far worse economy.
The MTA will have a big surplus again this year making it about 7 years in a row with one. They are projecting the defecits for the future. If you pay attention over the last 25 years not once has the TA not claimed poverty during a contract year. A few years ago they claimed poverty got there employees to settle for an inferior contract and then a month later they “found” a few hundred million dollars laying around.
We’ve all seen how well the transit workers perform under their union contracts. Demanding a 4% raise in the current economy is just insulting. Eliminate the union, then we can discuss increased pay for increased performance.
Decreased performance???
In this same economic climate Police, Firefighters, Sanatation workers, and teachers have received fair wage increases why not transit workers?
People like to get mad at the working man for transits problems when the problem is obviously poor management and zero acountability.
Like I said before more people are using transit and there are far fewer employees than years ago doing more work. Thats called productivity. It’s really disgusting how all of the other unions get our(the publics) support except this one. The one that enables over 7 million people a day to get to and from work safely.
…and pay and job security will tank.
In countries where business and labor aren’t trying to destroy each other, like Germany, unions are pretty reasonable about wage increases. In the US, real median weekly wages are still below their 1973 peak, when real GDP per capita was half what it is today. Why shouldn’t unions press for a fair share of the last 35 years’ growth?