Gelinas: No Senate leadership on runaway wages

Earlier this week, when the Republican-controlled State Senate voted to repeal the payroll tax, I accused them of playing politics poorly with the MTA. I’ve already explained why Sen. Lee Zeldin’s fiscal claims are pure fantasy, and I’m not the only one eying this measure with skepticism.

In The Post today, Nicole Gelinas takes the Senate to task for missing what she feels are the right issues. First, Zeldin’s charges that the MTA could save $1.4 billion seem to resemble nothing approaching reality, and second, she wants to see state leaders getting tougher on wages and employee benefits. I’ll excerpt extensively for the purposes of discussion:

On Wednesday, Senate Republicans fulfilled a longtime promise, voting to slash the tax roughly in half: Their plan would exempt small businesses and schools come January, then end the tax in the suburbs over two years, while reducing it by a third within the city. But the bill has no chance in the Assembly; all the GOP has done is remind us that the shift of party control of the Senate only changes the sound of the grandstanding. The Republicans are no more likely to stick up for taxpayers and riders against public-sector unions than were the Democrats.

Sure, Sen. Lee Zeldin, the freshman Long Islander who has pushed hardest for the bill, sounds good. He says correctly that the MTA can be more efficient, sell off real estate and explore some privatization. But the MTA is already doing the first two: Headcount is down 4,066 people since 2008. Even if it cuts 4,000 more, it would still face a $660 million annual deficit by 2014.

Plus, Zeldin and colleagues are tiptoeing around the elephant in the room: Albany has no idea where to get the $9.9 billion needed for the next three years’ worth of investments in rail cars and buses, plus construction projects like bringing the Long Island Rail Road into Grand Central. Zeldin notes gamely that MTA Chairman Jay Walder can save bucks on capital. But even if Walder saved 20 percent, Albany would need to come up with nearly $8 billion. That’s an extra $520 million a year in debt costs.

The senators claim some of their tax repeal is pain-free. But this is fantasy: They’d give the MTA $100 million in revenues from New York’s carbon cap-and-trade plan — money that may well not materialize. And they’d restore state aid to the city, with the provision that Gotham devote $150 million to transit. That’s moving money around.

If the GOP were serious, it would address union-labor costs. In three years, MTA pension and health costs will rise 30 percent. It’s not just a city issue; suburban railroad workers enjoy benefits not available in the private sector. But in Wednesday’s debate, senators talked everything from MTA “mob infiltration” to “criminal accounting” to whether tax-paying is “patriotic.” Nobody said that the MTA’s workers should pay more for health care, saving $150 million, or that pensions for new workers should be less generous.

On a three-year wage freeze, Zeldin was less than firm, telling me that “I would support just about anything that the MTA and the unions agree to, provided it’s fiscally responsible.” He said that pressure should come from the popular governor, since “to do something that impacts large unions, it can’t be just one senator leading by the chin.”

GOP lawmakers, as usual, are gung-ho on the tax issue. But on the union medicine needed, they profess that it’s the MTA that has to come up with ideas. The MTA, in turn, knows not to ask for anything anti-union that Albany doesn’t support.

Democrats, who were too busy discussing Fernando Ferrar’s mustache, have been no better, she says, but that’s seemingly beside the point. No one in Albany is willing to push either the MTA or its unions to make some badly needed concessions.

Now, I’m not a stridently anti-union guy usually, and I’m certainly not as against organized labor as Gelinas and the Manhattan Institute are. Yet, it’s clear that the MTA has a labor problem. It cannot keep doling out wage raises and full pensions while the rest of its financial picture declines. It cannot become a welfare institution that cannot provide adequate transportation service because too much of its budget is tied up in employee compensation. Fiscal responsibility will start with better payroll measures.

Ultimately, the MTA should be looking at ways to streamline operations through OPTO, through overtime control and through better collaboration across departments. It’s slowly getting there, but it’s going to need political support to do so. Will the Governor step up? Will the Senate? Will anyone?