As the hot summer days melt away, the MTA and its unionized workers are rushing headlong toward a labor battle. The authority, as we know, wants to keep labor costs steady, cap what it views as runaway pension spending and, if possible, halt or curtail wage increases. The union wants the polar opposite. While the two sides recently worked together to push Albany to approve a Transit Lockbox bill, the fall negotiations will be long and bitter.
In the build-up to these negotiations, battle lines are being drawn, and Monday’s Daily News featured the first salvo. In what was frankly an odd piece, Pete Donohue highlighted the perils of being a transit worker. Starting with the story of a 1995 station booth torching and mentioning a recent attack, he noted the incidents of violence perpetrated against transit workers by irate customers. These included token booth torchings in 1979 and 1988 as well.
Meanwhile, the article mentions some long-term statistics as well. Since 1947, 239 track workers were killed on the job, Donohue reports. It also, he writes without citing actual numbers, “seems a day doesn’t go by without someone jumping or falling in front of a train entering a station.” It all builds to one conclusion: “Straphangers shouldn’t be outraged that transit workers will at least ask for a cost-of-living increase. There should be outrage that the MTA will make a strong push to deny them one.”
If only it were that simple. This labor battle isn’t really about cost-of-living increases or worker safety. It’s going to be about worker productivity, job flexibility and personnel staffing levels. It will be about securing maximum efficiency from dwindling numbers of workers, and if the MTA is able to wrest the concessions it wants from the union, it will be far more likely to consider that cost-of-living wage that Donohue holds in such high esteem. (Anyway, as Larry Littlefield noted in the Streetsblog comments, it would help the argument to at least explore how transit workers’ wages have increased vis-a-vis other workers over the past few years. That’s an argument missing from the early discussions.)
So what then exactly are the real issues? Regular SAS readers will now them well. The lasting image of station agents is that of a worker fast asleep in a deserted station. The MTA will likely want to expand the role of those remaining station agents. Should they be required to leave their booths? On the flip side, what extra safety precautions can the MTA can guarantee? The overarching concern though is one of use: Do we even need as many station agents as we have?
Next come concerns over staffing levels. Do trains need a conductor and a driver? When will New York City embrace OPTO? Why have two people do the job of one? In a similar vein, why are the individual labor roles so limited? People who clean stations don’t clean trains and vice versa. The MTA will look to exact more productivity out of its labor force.
Finally, what of escalating pension costs? Should the MTA expect to sustain a slew of workers who can retire at 55 with full benefits but then live for another 25-30 years? The agency isn’t operating with much fiscal leeway, and if it has to pay a current labor force and a retired labor force, operating budgets are going to suffer.
In the right context, a cost-of-living adjustment and more safety precautions should be non-issues, and in that sense, Donohue is right on the money. Negotiations, though, are a constant give-and-take, and until both sides recognize that reality, the divide between them may be a deep one indeed.
34 comments
The union also has to crack down on the workers, be it those who train or just those who don’t care about their jobs, that make it look bad.
*looks at NTT conductors who don’t know how to use the software and screw simple things up*
Worse than that are the ones who don’t bother making corrections. If you know the 7 is shut down for the weekend, why are you letting your train tell people to transfer to it? Get on the PA and tell them it’s shut down, and if you’re feeling really helpful, you might even want to give a few alternatives.
I completely agree. It’s very annoying to be on a train with the FIND system all wrong. Aren’t they trained how to properly use it and fix it when it’s incorrect?
Thanks for mentioning these union work rules. When I talk about them, I feel like a lot of liberal transit activists dismiss it as some right-wing obsession of mine, but I think they really are crucial to understanding why transit costs in the US are so high compared to the rest of the developed world.
Its still not unions themselves. You think French transit workers arent unionized?
I’m not saying that bad union work rules are an inevitable part of transit unions – obviously France and Japan manage much better than us, despite still being unionized. However, there is no doubt that these union work rules – the ones Ben is discussing and the ones I was referring to when I said “these union work rules” – are a problem.
That having been said, of course “union work rules” are not decided solely by the unions – politicians agree to them, and management lives under them without complaining as much as they should. So I’m not even totally blaming it on the unions, but the rules in question are nevertheless called “union work rules” (specifically, the non-wage, non-healthcare, non-pension parts of the collective bargaining agreement, which can be quite detailed).
Actually I think “union work rules” might be worse in France and Japan. At least some of them. They certainly get paid better, have longer vacations, and shorter work hours.
That being said, I think the bigger difference on cost is difference (and efficiency) in switching the cost of insurance and pensions to the government versus being paid for by the companies. That’s an enormous cost that we force companies and state-level agencies in the U.S. to contend with. Add in higher pay for executives and lack of national labor negotiations. (For instance, a union in France doesn’t have to negotiate with each company individually. They are industry wide.) And you start understand how our system builds in efficiency and leads to higher costs.
French ones are – French work rules are so awful that SNCF markets itself as being able to deal with highly unionized environments. But Japanese ones are not; working hours are about the same in Japan and the US.
I usually point out to such critics that saving money on the operational side would leave more for investment in the system and expansion, and for the union that should mean more jobs down the road. If “liberals” weren’t such raging right-wing nuts, they’d agree!
I think most of these folks are in NYCERS and the pension has never been better
http://www.comptroller.nyc.gov.....7-064.shtm
whatever the media has been feeding you is a sham.
Anon, first of all, as a state agency, the MTA union pension is most likely not invested with city pensions. Second of all, those numbers are a single years worth of performance that is correlated with the stock recovery. The market has still not returned to pre-Lehman levels, and I doubt the pension fund has either. None of which addresses long term unfunded liabilities related workers receiving for retirement benefits for 25-30 years.
Yes NYC Transit hourly and supervisory “operating” employees (as opposed to MABSTOA, LIRR and MNR employees) are in NYCERS – they collect NYC pensions. I know beacuse I’m one of them.
It’s the folks at MTA HQ who collect state pensions. MNR and LIRR have a different 1 under some railroad worker statute I believe. I am not certain on B&T, but I think that SIR is also NYCERS.
MTA is not a state agency it is a public benefit corporation.
I suppose all the employees listed in NYC civil list (listing all NYC employee salaries) are on NYCERs — there are a heck-a-lot-of-em.
NYCTA falls at least partially under the NYC civil service.
Agencies like MNRR and LIRR have different rules. So does MTA Bus, which apparently has no requirement for civil service exams and supposedly has been hiring back many of the laid off NYCTA workers.
In New York state( unlike NJ and southern states) the pensions are not unfunded. They meet the 80% threshold, ie they are healthy. There is a very severe recession and people are using this to effect their ideological agendas.
There is a lot of propaganda being bandied about.
Not wages, total costs.
The public employee unions argue that their members agree to lower pay in exchange for pensions.
Well, public employees benefitted from a number of retroactive pension enrichments over the years (but not 20/50, which the TWU went on strike for). These were claimed to “cost nothing,” but that wasn’t true. For example, the elimination of pension contributions after ten years reduced the amount TWU workers contribute to their own pensions by three-quarters.
But in the last contract, an arbitrator awarded raises far in excess of the rate of inflation, which was far in excess of the increase in wages for most workers. And many have lost what retirement savings they have as well.
So, how has the total cost per hour worked changed, and how does that compare with those other than non-executive non-public employees?
A change that would benefit the employees, riders and the public is to get away from these back ended pensions and move to more of a modified 401k type system where the mta/city/state would deposit a certain dollar amount into each employees account and do what is done in the city 457 plans is to subsidize a fixed interest rate of return on money in the accounts with the pension system making investments to reach their targets as they do now. Also a range of other investments would increase the retiree return over and above the rate which I believe is 8.5% for most unions (teachers less as they cut a deal with bloomberg)
What the unions problem with this? AHHH the 80 pound gorilla in the room is that it would expose the true hourly rate of city/state workers.
As a city worker, I see older workers hanging on an extra 3-5 years who want to be somewhere else, can’t do the work the way the public needs and make themselves sick but have to stay because the pension reduction penalty of leaving 1 year earlier is so great. Smart city workers also contribute to their 457 plans and could easily put in 2-5% lifetime into the pension(pre-tax) would not break the bank for most workers. FYI most workers have no clue how the pension system operates until they retire. It is a complex formula
In the end this would save everyone money and still provide the support employees need for their elder years.
“FYI most workers have no clue how the pension system operates until they retire.”
Neither do most bloggers.
It is clear that the vast majority of employees that fall under the companies governed by the MTA are in the NYCERs system.
NYCERS has never been better. Pension problem in NYC is a hoax perpetrated to bilk the middle class.
NYCT = NYCERS
B+T= NYCERS
SIR= NYCERS
MNRR/LIRR= railroad pensions.
MTA POLICE= NY police pension.
MTA bus= not sure that they get a defined benefit pension. Don’t know about MTA HQ.
http://www.nycers.org/Pdf/forms/910.pdf
Yeah, that’s the NYCT NYCERS plan. I KNOW there is a B+T NYCERS plan. I don’t see where SIR is NYCERS. I know that MTA BUS is not NYCERS.
The strike was not about 20/50. That is a lie. At one time the NYCTA pension WAS 20/50 ( Quill ). That was given back. Then it was 30/62 and in the mid 90’s it became 25/55. It became 25/55 in lieu of raises.
If anything the strike was about Toussaint’s personal survival. In the previous contract he had been forced to accept 0%,0%,2%. He said the strike was about protecting future workers- “the un-born”- was his phrase..
The Donohue article is yellow journalism, and he did not justify how a COLA would somehow offset someone being torched to death.
As far as I am aware, life expectancies for most of the semi-hazardous and hazardous jobs on the MTA, including many subway jobs and bus-driving jobs, is well below average. Lifelong bus drivers often don’t live long past 60. That’s one reason they fight hard for 55 year old retirement and good pension benefits.
These employees are less likely to cause budget problems by living on pensions for 30 years than say, municipal employees with desk jobs or policemen who can retire in their 40s.
Heh, another (subtle) reason why buses suck. They actually kill the people who sit in them for extended periods of time. Yet people think they solve everything….
Anyway, that’s no excuse. A bus driver’s stint could be limited to 10 years. And they could be expected to work elsewhere in the agency to get a full career – or not. For what we pay bus drivers, I’m sure plenty of people would be willing to put in full 10-year terms even without the prospect of advancement. The TWU would love that idea!
after 10 years where would they go? Make no sense. There should be opportunity to move to other position in the organization but at current hourly rate for that position not current position. Make no sense keeping an employees in a role which is no longer right for him or her
The solution is to have a modified 40k type pension system so that employees can leave when they are ready to leave. Make no sense having a 60 year old driver driving himself sick.
people misunderstand what a 401k type system really means.
For one the city puts a set amount of money in a lockbox account that grows each year. The city would set a interest rate on that money so that it will equal out to be what pension would be upon retirement under the current system. It also could allow 50% of the money to be invested in higher returning assets such as mutual funds. In the end it is a benefit for the worker as one could leave when he or she is ready without the current steep pension reductions for leaving early. The person can now work a job that better fits him or her.
A win win for all. It really is
A point of note. A person who gets a $72k pension per year needs to have an account value of $1.2 million at 6% interest rate. So most city employees retire millionaires.
There is NO ONE in TWU Local 100 who gets a pension of 72K a year!
I don’t really care where they go; they can go drive trains, swab floors, or do whatever else needs to be done. And I don’t understand your hangup about overpaying people. It’s about 10% of the MTA’s problem and gets 90% of the attention from most MTA critics. I’d be much more concerned about over-staffing or under-performance than overpaying.
Very few people get a $72k/year pension. Even if they did have such an amount, they would not be millionaires because they have no way to cash in on the annuity, and the annuity terminates with their death. They’d have to live a long time and save very well to really be millionaires. A millionaire is actually somebody who leaves behind that kind of money or at least an estate worth that much, which is incredibly unlikely as a city or MTA worker.
In the past city and mta workers got paid less in pay in exchange for better pensions. In the past 10 years the pay has caught up. It is also true that mta workers such as bus drivers and track workers life expectancy is reduced by all the hard work they put in in difficult situations .
The problem is the work rules that ben has gone through and a few more that pad the payroll to benefit the union leaderships coffers and not so much the workers.
A cleaner is a cleaner
Bus drivers overtime rules need to change. IF you choose to select an overtime shift at another depot you should pick up the bus at the nearest depot not your home depot and get paid sometimes 2 + hours round trip extra driving time.
OPTO must be rolled out systemwide and without layoffs. It is a multi year effort. The extra workers will be needed as workers are getting training. It also saves in that the MTA needs fewer workers on the extra-extra list. In not any less safe than current operations. The only change i would make to the current L line implementation is to move the screens inside the cab so that the driver can see the platform as the train exits the station.
LIRR work rule need major revisions. LIRR and metro north should be one organizations that shares resources .
Overtime should be paid at straight time pay unless you surpass 40-45 hour per week then you get time and a half. The time and a half provision is only there to discourage employers from not hiring needed staff and try to cover the time with overtime
Other changes is that station agents should be fazed out in favor of security officers who can help enforce the rules and fare which could be dispatched onto trains in stations and on buses. Each station should have a minimum of one security or NYPD at all times.
I have never heard that argument made before. Do you have numbers on bus driver life expectancy? Does analysis attribute the shorter lifespan to the job itself — inherent stress? — or to the fact that people who tend to be bus drivers tend to choose self destructive behaviors? (For example, regular gamblers tend to die very young, not because of the hazards of gambling but because they’re wildly more likely to smoke and take other risks than regular people. They’re gamblers, after all.)
This is exactly right. Driving a bus, or working in other operating titles such as Train Operator, Conductor, etc, is not in and of itself overly hazardous. The fact is many of the people working in these jobs are less well educated than the average population. A correlation exists between education and healthy life style: the better educated the more likely the person will be to eat a healthy, balanced diet, exercise regularly and keep one’s weight down.
In almost 37 years at NYCTA I couldn’t help but notice the awful food many hourly operating employees ate on a daily basis: all sorts of fatty fast foods, lots of soft drinks, etc. And a significant number of them were over weight and smoked.
As you moved up into the better educated managerial ranks you noticed immediately a healthier life style on average.
In my experience long time operational employees (drivers, motormen) are more self-disciplined than the general population. Sitting down and operating a vehicle for, say, six hours a day (or longer for B/Os with swing time) IS unhealthy and is very different from sitting in an office or working in service industries. Add on a 3 or 4 hours daily commuting (not uncommon) and your going to have problems. Also spend 9 hours in the subway, then blow your nose into a white tissue……. look at it…….
“it would help the argument to at least explore how transit workers’ wages have increased vis-a-vis other workers over the past few years.”
and if other workers’ wages are found to be lagging, then those must be brought up to transit workers’ levels.