Transit Labor

During yesterday’s discussion on subway stations we love to hate, a few readers mentioned narrow platforms as a major concern. At rush hour, some stations simply cannot handle the crowds, and lately, the MTA has dealt with a spate of accidents, some fatal, at 72nd St. and Broadway, an express stop home of a very narrow platform. John Samuelsen has a solution.

The TWU boss, in an letter to Joe Lhota which The Daily News obtained, calls upon the MTA to bring more employees to oversee platforms at crowded or dangerous stations. The authority has reduced these so-called station conductors from 100 to 40 over the past five years, and they could restore some order. “The platform is so narrow that if a person slips or trips there is a good chance they will be hit by an approaching train or fall onto the tracks,” he wrote.

Samuelsen might be onto something, but I wonder if he would accept my proposal: Bring aboard more station conductors by changing the job responsibilities of station agents to include platform duty during peak hours. This way, the MTA wouldn’t have to spend money it doesn’t have on staffing levels while at the same time, the authority would be developing a more productive work force. It would be a win for the MTA, a win for passengers and a win for the union as well.

As the MTA and TWU amble their way toward some sort of settlement over their current contract dispute, dissent may be brewing from within the Local 100 ranks. As Ted Mann of The Wall Street Journal reports today, Roger Toussaint, the erstwhile leader of the city’s TWU local and the man responsible for the 2005 transit strike, is back on the scene, and he has been aggressive in targeting John Samuelsen’s current approach to negotiations. “The issue is not if they have the [money],” Toussaint said to The Journal. “It’s about getting it from them. And you have to have a real strategy to do that. You can’t just make it up as you go along and hope that no one notices.”

After losing an election to Samuelsen in 2009, Toussaint had faded from the scene, and in fact, he had moved down to D.C. for a few years. Within the past few months, when Samuelsen refused to threaten a strike, Toussaint moved back to Brooklyn to resume his track-shop job with the MTA, and many believe he is angling for a spot atop the leadership structure at Local 100. Toussaint in his interview with Mann slams Samuelsen for his approach toward negotiation. He wants a hardline, and he wants the MTA leadership to hear that even as they continue to threaten a net-zero wage increase.

For his part, Samuelsen shrugged off Toussaint’s words and presence. “Roger couldn’t mobilize 20 members to do anything after the 2005 strike,” Samuelsen said. “He couldn’t mobilize a bunch of kindergarten kids to get online to get cookies and milk, and yet he finds fit to criticize our mobilization in the last year.” Still, the former president’s militant tone, in light of the TWU’s embrace of the Occupy Wall Street movement, must have current TWU leadership watching their political backs.

When the TWU accused the MTA of “negotiating through the media,” union leaders staged a public walk-out from the negotiations and refused to sit down with their authority counterparts for two weeks. Today, as talks were due to start up again, the authority had a chance to respond to union press leaks, and respond they did.

The New York Post reported this morning that the TWU had “won” a key concession from the MTA. Subway drivers may receive three days off following any incident, fatal or not, in which their train strikes a person. Furthermore, conductors could get time off if they observe someone fall between cars or slip between the subway and platform edge. In the past, conductors did not receive such time off, and drivers had to be behind the wheel of a fatal accident to qualify. “Protecting conductors and operators from these horrible incidents underground was one of the main goals,” The Post’s source said.

As TWU President John Samuelsen reacted to an MTA leak, so too did the authority react to a TWU leak. “It is the MTA’s policy not to negotiate through the press,” MTA Chairman Joe Lhota responded in turn. “However, we will not allow inaccurate or leaked statements regarding negotiations to stand as fact. Today’s New York Post story is harmful to the collective bargaining process.” It is unclear if The Post report is accurate or what the TWU may give up in return for these protections, and despite the tense war of words over media reports, sources confirm to me that neither party anticipates a strike even if a deal is not yet on the horizon.

This morning, it took my 4 train a whopping ten minutes to go from 14th St. to 42nd St., and as the announcements kept blaring about “train traffic ahead of us,” my mind wandered to this Daily News article. In the wake of a series of gruesome deaths a few weeks ago, the TWU has told its train drivers to “use extra care” when entering stations due to safety concerns. It’s a perfectly legal move employed during labor negotiations that tend to drive straphangers nuts.

Meanwhile, after two weeks of stewing over “bad faith negotiations” brought about when the TWU objected to an apparent leak of the MTA’s demands, the two sides will resume formal talks on Thursday. While the TWU’s outrage over the MTA’s supposed negotiating tactics has stalled forward progress, MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota says that he and TWU president John Samuelsen have maintained an open line of communication over the past few weeks. A deal though is still not on the horizon, but neither is a strike.

For a full glimpse at the MTA’s demands, check out this pdf. They range from benefit reductions to operational improvements, but OPTO, sadly, is not among them.