TWU exec takes the low road at MTA meeting

The TWU and the MTA are engaged in something of a fight right now. After agreeing to binding arbitration over a labor contract, the MTA has appealed an award of an 11 percent raise for the TWU on the grounds that the arbitration panel made errors of law in considering the agency’s ability to pay. Despite the use of the word “binding” in the arbitration format, this appeal is legally permissible, and TWU workers have been loath to recognize that truth.

In a sense, then, as the MTA and TWU are engaged in a legal fight, the two sides are also engaged in a public relations battle. The TWU is trying to portray the MTA as a management-heavy organization intent on paying its countless executives far more than they deserve. On the other hand, the MTA is trying to make the case that the 11 percent raises over the next three years will foist more unscheduled fare hikes onto a public already paying too much for its subway service.

And so yesterday, at Jay Walder’s first MTA Board, the TWU opted to take the low road. Andreeva Pinder, a station agent and TWU executive, resorted to a playground insult in her discussion about the elmination of the station agents. “Month after month we beseech you to safeguard your riders. But you people are so removed from reality,” Pinder said. “You guys are just a bunch of doody-heads.”

That is a direct quote from Pinder’s testimony. She got up in front of a bunch of MTA executives and called them doody heads. No wonder people don’t think too highly of MTA employees. Pinder, as those with long memories may recall, once had to be forcibly escorted out of an MTA Board meeting when she spoke for 30 minutes instead of the allotted three.

Words such as these do no one any favors. First, Pinder’s initial claims — that the lack of station agents has led to some sort of MTA-produced anarchy — simply isn’t true. At the entrances now lacking station agents, the subways still operate with the same old efficiency. Crime is not up, and straphangers are not getting hopelessly lost. Meanwhile, resorting to childish names might sound funny at the time, but it’s tough to earn the respect of a skeptical public even if Pinder may have tried to make a valid point.

In the end, this fight will continue, and if yesterday’s words were any indication, it may get nastier before it is resolved. I’m no expert in arbitration law and cannot proffer an opinion on the outcome of the MTA’s appeal. If the courts, though, side with the agency, an all-out labor war could ensue.

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In other arbitration news, John Zuccotti, the arbitrator who awarded the TWU its raises, billed the MTA $900 an hour for his work, and the new MTA leadership is outraged. The bill came to $400,000 for his services, and although the MTA and the TWU are to split the total, anonymous MTA board members were outraged that former head Elliot Sander negotiated such a rate. George Nicolau, another arbitrator, charged just $34,000. Someone somewhere down the line negotiated a bad deal.