The Transport Workers Union Local 100 has pulled out of talks with the MTA over claims that that the authority is attempting to negotiate through the media, according to reports. After an article appeared in today’s Daily News charting the MTA’s demands in light of the union’s request for a raise, TWU President John Samuelsen said he would banter through the press. “You had bus operators, track workers, signal maintainers, reading the newspaper today, with a better grasp of what the MTA was going to do with the negotiation committee of the union than the leadership of the union,” he said, “and that’s an outrage.”
According to The Daily News, the MTA appeared willing to budge on the union’s request for a one-percent raise this year and next, but its demands were high. The MTA had wanted to change overtime rules to kick in after a 40-hour work week rather than an eight-hour work day and had planned to demand part-time bus drivers, less vacation time and revised health care plans. Raises too will come with other work rule changes as well.
For its part, the MTA denied negotiating through the press, and TWU leaders said they would be willing to resume talks eventually. For now, we wait.
18 comments
strike! strike! strike!
where’s the respect!
Smash the state?
The Daily News article doesn’t contain any new information. The MTA said from the beginning they wouldn’t agree to pay raises without work rule changes that yielded the same amount. I wonder what’s really going on here?
My guess is that the union leadership is making a show of it for the rank-and-file so that when they do accept work rule changes and payroll reductions in exchange for wage increases, the rank-and-file won’t revolt. Maybe that’s too cynical though.
The MTA had wanted to change overtime rules to kick in after a 40-hour work week rather than an eight-hour work day
I’m not current with New York labor law and it’s relationship to the MTA. Last I checked New York law is that you get paid overtime for anything over 8 hours in a day.
This only makes sense if they institute part time jobs. Otherwise it only applies to workers who have no sick time left who call out sick after having worked more than 8 hours in a single day. I doubt that even adds up to $100,000.
What happens if I have a picked job that pays 10 hours a day and I call out sick for one day after having worked 4 days? I get paid one sick day-8 hours. I have scores of sick days accrued.
http://www.labor.ny.gov/worker.....faq.shtm#5
“The overtime requirement is based on hours worked in a given payroll week. Thus, time and one-half, double-time – or any amount higher than the agreed rate – is not required simply because the work is performed after eight hours per day or on a Saturday or Sunday.”
you try doing what we do for more than 8 hours!
Give me a break. Anyone at any job could say that, and yet people manage to make life work when they are at their jobs for more than 8 hours a day. Boo freakin’ hoo.
He’s an anti-transit worker troll. Ignore him.
but it’s important to point out the brainwash: he thinks people ought to be treated by management any way management likes. it’s the race to the bottom: instead of improving the lot of all wealth creators, we’re supposed to accept anything management choose to do to us. that’s a race i’ll be glad to lose.
are you kidding me?!?!
way to treat a brother
I don’t think a hard, fast overtime-for-overstaying a shift is necessarily fair, but there should be a rule about on how often it’s expected and what the variance in a month or season or your would typically be. If it exceeds that variance, then overtime-for-overstaying can kick in.
well, wouldn’t there essentially be a kick-in once you go over 40 for the week? no need to over-design a solution, that’s how we create a bureaucratic mess.
Sure, but is it exactly fair to interrupt people lives four days a week? Some people have to be home at a certain time to take care of their kids, or whatever. I think this is something that is fair to agree on ahead of time, and it should be fairly predictable. It’s operations management 101.
Clarifying my typo above: that should read “…what the variance in a month or season or year…”
You know what’s an outrage? The fact that these negotiations are conducted in secret is an outrage, they can agree to anything and the riders and taxpayers who have to pay are kept in the dark.
The politicians/appointees and the unions should be REQUIRED to publicly state what they want and why, and make their case. And ask yourself this, why do only the union members get to vote on whether or not the final deal is fair?
absolutely agree
Giving up a sweetheart deal ain’t easy