Second Ave. Sagas

Category: TWU

  • Unnecessarily unto the public hearing breach

    Later this evening, MTA Board members and angry union members will square off in a pair of public hearings. Despite voting to cut the station agents in early 2010 and holding hearings on a nearly identical proposal a year ago, the MTA had to host these public open houses to placate a Manhattan Supreme Court judge who found that the MTA’s dismissals this year for plans approved last year violated the law. What the hearings tonight will accomplish is very little.

    We’ve been down this path before with public hearings, and every time the MTA opens itself up to hearing from its constituents, politicians and interest groups grab the microphones. Instead of allowing people to speak in the order in which they’ve signed up, our elected officials often jump to the front of the line to get in their shots and go home. That’s what happened in March when the authority heard from the public on the planned slate of service cuts.

    This week’s hearings should be even worse. The TWU organizers have engaged in a blitz via Twitter, Facebook, phone-banking and old fashioned union round-ups to, as one release put it, “pack these hearings and deliver a strong message” to the MTA Board members. At locations in Manhattan and Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx, MTA employees will come out in force to yell at those who sign their checks.

    In all likelihood, tempers will flare as they did in March. When job cuts are on the line, labor leaders tend to be ruthless, and anyone who dares speak out in favor of the plan to shutter token booths and fire station agents will be, at the very least, mocked and probably threatened by the union supporters in the crowd. With jobs on the line, after all, the TWU members are very motivated to attend these hearings and make themselves known.

    On the one hand, I can’t hold the TWU’s actions against them. As a labor union, those in charge have to protect their jobs, and right now, the TWU is fighting against an MTA Board that has already made up its mind in a day and age very hostile to labor interests. Many New Yorkers have come to see station agents as superfluous, and while these workers put themselves in harm’s way on a daily basis, the media coverage often focuses around those who don’t do their jobs well rather than those who do.

    But on the other hand, I still have to wonder about the union’s lackluster support for the MTA in Albany and at home. Instead of talking about the way pension obligations represent nine percent of the MTA’s annual expenditures, former union members focus on debt service which accounts for 16 percent of the MTA’s spending pie. Do two spending wrongs make an economic right?

    The TWU has never embraced congestion pricing, claiming to me once via Twitter that it was “too complicated” to get into the debate through that media and voicing concerns about the impact a charge would have on the middle class. This argument completely ignores the fact that middle class New Yorkers don’t spend their days driving to and from Manhattan’s Central Business District and would, in fact, benefit more from a more fully funded subway system. Such are the way of unions today.

    So tonight we get a political governmental farce. On the stage will be MTA Board members who are there because a judge told them to be. They’ll hear the crowd; they’ll vote to close the booths and fire the station agents. At the microphone, we’ll see an increasingly belligerent audience using the time to bash the MTA for all of its many short-comings. No matter who wins, those paying the fare and riding the subways will lose.

  • With station agent hearings on tap, mediation looms for TWU

    As the MTA and TWU continue to square off over station agent dismissals and other cost-savings proposals that would impact labor, the two sides have reportedly agreed to go to mediation to attempt to settle their disputes. While TWU Local 100 President John Samuelsen continues to remain firm in his call for a no-layoffs provision, MTA CEO and Chairman Jay Walder believes mediation could help lower the MTA’s budget deficit without resorting to further service cuts. “Labor represents a large portion of the cost of doing business here, about two-thirds of the cost of doing business at the MTA. My hope is that we can work together in partnership,” he said.

    This news breaks on the eve of the public hearings the MTA must hold before it can shutter more token booths and fire station agents. The hearings are set for Tuesday and Wednesday with two per evening, and Streetsblog has the details: Manhattan and Queens tomorrow; Brooklyn and the Bronx on Wednesday. These hearings come after a state judge deemed the initial layoffs illegal without public comment, but I have to wonder how useful this political charade will be.

    For weeks, the TWU has planned to turn the hearings into a labor rally. As a recent release on the union’s Facebook page noted, labor organizers hope to “pack these hearings and deliver a strong message that we’ve had enough.” As the TWU is also alleging that these hearings are illegal, I can’t imagine anything other than animosity tomorrow night. Will TWU officials propose funding mechanisms to keep their jobs? Will they support congestion pricing or bridge tolls? Or should the riders have to pay for jobs that are largely unnecessary?

  • A costly and unnecessary no-layoffs bill moves forward

    With TWU workers set to enjoy a three-percent raise next year despite a $400 million MTA budget gap that led to this week’s service cuts, Albany is set to handcuff the MTA’s labor practices. A bill that passed the Senate yesterday and now awaits Assembly approval will bar the authority from closing station booths, fire agents and eliminating on-board personnel numbers. It would, says, the MTA rollback $80 million in cost savings, and the hypocrisy from Albany on this measure runs deep.

    As the authority has tried to close a budget gap of approximately $400 million, it has tried to work with the TWU leadership to find savings. After all, a fiscally healthy MTA is in the best interests of its employees, and the upcoming mandatory raises are more than anyone should expect while working for a company that’s bleeding money. Last week, the authority floated a proposal that would have saved it money and the union jobs in exchange for a lesser benefits package for new workers. The union counterproposed another plan that would have allowed for $35 million in savings.

    In each case, a provision calling for no layoffs proved to be a sticking. The MTA won’t grant it, and the TWU won’t accept benefits or salary reduction measures without one. Meanwhile, the union is working behind the scenes in Albany to get legislation passed that would hamstring the MTA’s labor relations for at least the next three years.

    The bill the State Senate passed is S03772, and it is sponsored by Martin Dilan, chair of the transportation committee, with Ruben Diaz, Ruth Hassell-Thompson and Diane Savino as co-sponsors. Ostensibly, the bill is entitled the Transit Authority Passenger Security and Safety Act, but with the TWU openly touting its passage, it’s clear that this is a piece of special interest legislation wrapped in the en vogue language of safety and security.

    With a justification in the enclosing memo citing “threat of terrorist attacks,” the act requires the MTA to keep at least one train operator and one conductor on board each train and cannot close token booths until at least July 1, 2013. During the next three years, a TA Transit Safety Advisory panel is supposed to “study, monitor and make recommendations with respect to the public safety from terrorist threats and criminal mischief” at stations. “I really don’t want to micromanage the MTA, but sometimes public safety trumps everything,” Senator Dilan said to the Daily News this morning.

    Right now, the bill is awaiting action in the Assembly, but with numerous sponsors, it should see a floor vote at some point. As the legislation ripens, the MTA is less than pleased. In a response memo, the MTA slammed the bill and Dilan’s line of thinking. “Decisions about transit operations are best made as the result of thorough managerial analysis and review, not mandated by statute or advisory panels,” the authority said.

    In a word, this bill is a travesty. The TWU can’t seem to come to an agreement with the MTA over the layoffs, and so it’s using its powerful political position to exploit Albany’s dislike of the MTA. If this bill passes, the state assembly will have, in the span of eight months, stolen $143 million from the MTA and forced it to implement unnecessary and costly business practices without funding them. Trains don’t need two operators, and under this regime, the MTA wouldn’t be able to implement cost-saving OPTO plans. Additionally, every single station booth doesn’t need to be staffed. But that doesn’t stop Albany from acting. Barring layoffs until 2013 would ensure that we the riding public have to pay more for less, and you can thank our elected representatives for that.

  • To save current jobs, fewer benefits for new ones

    As the MTA looks to both cut $400 million from its deficit and save numerous endangered TWU jobs, the authority has offered a carrot to the unions. According to The Daily News, the MTA will rescind pink slips for 700 bus drivers and station agents in exchange for changes to the packages offered to new workers. According to Pete Donohue, the changes include a “less generous pension” that would kick in when workers are 57 with 30 years of experience or 66 with a decade’s worth of work instead of the current 55/25 plan; top hourly pay after five instead of three years on the job; and higher contributions for health care coverage.

    Interestingly, the MTA is also proposing a way to get around next year’s mandated three-percent raise for TWU members. Instead of a raise, workers would receive a one-time bonus of three percent. This bookkeeping would allow the MTA to start negotiations for a new TWU contract with the annual salaries at a lower point than they otherwise would be. The agency would still have to reduce the number of workers it employs but could do so through attrition instead of firings.

    Although neither side had an official comment for the story, TWU head John Samuelsen has said in the past that, according to Donohue, he “opposes opening up the existing contract to make permanent changes, especially without a written no-layoff clause for the future.” I’d imagine we’ll see a compromise somewhere in that highly sought-after middle ground as the authority might be asking for too many concessions here.

  • Judge orders MTA to keep station booths open

    MTA will appeal ruling but begin public hearing process as well

    Token Booth

    The legal dispute over the MTA’s desires to close token booths will continue. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)

    A New York State Supreme Court judge in Manhattan has ordered the MTA to keep station booths open and staffed until the Authority can hold public hearings on the closures. This decision — a legal blow to the MTA — came nearly a month to the day after another judge issued a temporary restraining order that kept station booths open. The authority, which says it will both appear and follow the ruling, will now have to hold public hearings on the station booth closures before proceeding with the dismissal of 222 workers and the shuttering of over 100 booths.

    The MTA first proposed closing the station booths in 2009 when a budget shortfall emerged. At the time, the authority held the hearings legally required under New York Public Authorities Law § 1205(5). When Albany approved the payroll tax package that guaranteed funding for the MTA, the authority decided to eliminate positions and close the booths through attrition rather than layoffs. Yet, when an $800 million deficit emerged in 2010, the authority announced its decision to implement layoffs but this time without a public hearing.

    In its legal argument, the Transport Workers Union Local 100 challenged the decision to eschew hearings. The TWU alleged a violation of the Public Authorities Law that requires the MTA to hold a hearing when it is contemplating “any complete or partial closing of a passenger station…or any means of public access to such facility.” The judge agreed with the TWU that these closures proposed for 2010 warranted a new hearing even though they were materially identical to those put forward last year.

    Taking an expansive view of the MTA’s requirements under the Public Authorities Law, Judge Saliann Scarpulla ordered the MTA to maintain the booths until hearings could be held. “As of May 2009, [the MTA] had informed the public that the earlier plan for mass subway token booth and customer assistant kiosk changes was not going to be implemented,” she wrote. “Once the respondents decided, almost a year later, to reimplement that plan, new hearings were required.”

    In a sense, though, Judge Scarpulla’s order hinges almost exclusively on this technicality. Because the MTA is cutting station agents through firings after saying it would so through attrition 12 months ago, it must hold another hearing. After all, as the TWU alleged, the “concerns of the citizenry” could have shifted in time.

    In a separate part of the opinion, however, Judge Scarpulla refuses to side with the TWU as it attempts to question the overall safety impact of the station agent dismissals. The TWU had wanted a judge to find that the booth closures would violate the MTA’s “statutory obligation to promote the safety and convenience of the public.” Since the MTA has traditionally been granted wide latitude in its operations, the final decision to close the booths is not, said the judge, “subject to judicial review.”

    So where then does this decision leave the MTA? First, the authority does not have to rehire the 250 station agents who were fired in early May. As long as the authority maintains staffing levels necessary to keep the booths open, it can do what it pleases with its employees. Second, the MTA can go ahead with dismissals and closures after it follows the legally mandated procedures as set forth in the Public Authorities Law. In other words, after going through another public comment and hearing process, the Board can still vote to close the stations and still vote to fire the workers.

    This ruling, then, is nothing more than a procedural and fiscal thorn in the MTA’s side, and it will probably cost $100,000 a day plus the expenses for the public hearings for the MTA to comply with it.

    In response, the MTA expressed is displeasure over the ruling and vowed to both appeal and start the lengthy public hearing process. “The MTA is disappointed in today’s ruling that we cannot proceed with slated subway booth and kiosk closures without repeating the public hearing process. These closures were necessitated by the MTA’s dire financial situation, and the need for the savings they generate remains,” the authority said in a statement this afternoon. “While we disagree with the ruling and intend to appeal, we will be proceeding on a parallel track with the public hearing process. With that in mind, an MTA Board meeting will be scheduled for next week at which the Board will be asked to authorize the public hearing process to move this vital cost-saving initiative forward.”

    I am still awaiting comment from the TWU.

    After the jump, a copy of the court’s decision is embedded. (more…)

  • TWU lawyers ask court to dismiss MTA complaint

    Laywers for the Transport Workers Union Local 100 have asked a Manhattan judge to dismiss the MTA’s attempts at overturning the arbitration-awarded raises for 2011, The Chief-Leader reports. Last Monday, I noted how the TWU planned to sue the MTA for these raises, but now, it appears as though the legal wrangling will amount to a request to throw out the MTA’s appeal. “The law is clear: it requires that a court vacate the entire contract; not only a part of it,” Larry Cary, the TWU’s lawyer, said to Ari Paul. “The MTA is doing something not contemplated by the law. It is implementing a contract and contesting it at the same time.”

    The MTA will attempt to argue that the arbitration panel did not consider the MTA’s precarious financial position when it opted to award 11 percent in raises over three years for the authority’s unionized employees. The TWU has long maintained that the authority is trying to circumvent the legal process by picking apart the award, and the judge could very well grant this motion to dismiss.

  • TWU set to sue for a third raise

    According to a brief item on NY1, the Transport Workers Union will sue the MTA for its 2011 raise. Under the 2009 arbitration ruling, TWU members were guaranteed raises of four percent in both 2009 and 2010 and three percent in 2011. The MTA, after losing an appeal, gave out the two of the three raises but claims it cannot afford to dish out the final three percent in January. The TWU will argue that the MTA’s actions are both “unfair and illegal,” and this legal battle will just increase the animosity that has the TWU lobbing cheap shots at the MTA leadership.

  • Samuelsen responds to overtime attack

    As the management at the MTA prepares to stop overtime and sick day abuses, those who head the labor unions are not too pleased with the news. John Samuelsen defended his workers from management’s critique today. MTA heads, he said to the Daily News, “demean their own workers publicly on a consistent basis, and they fail to acknowledge NYC Transit workers work in some of the most horrific conditions you can imagine. Several bus operators are assaulted every week, subway workers breathe in toxic fumes… We put our lives on the line to move the riding public, and when we get sick, the company tries to portray us as slackers.”

    Samuelsen’s statement is not unexpected, but it misses the mark. No one is questioning the nature of the emloyees’ work. Track work is not a walk in the park, and while I don’t believe “several” bus drivers are assaulted weekly, the job is not without its dangers. In return, MTA employees can retire well before most private-sector employee cans and with a robust pension and benefits package.

    What the MTA wants to combat isn’t the proper use of sick days but egregious violations of sick day policies. They want to combat lax overtime rules that allow workers to get paid for 40 hours of work while putting in fewer than 35 hours. They want to minimize overtime costs and shouldn’t be faulted for it. Publicly, Samuelsen is defending his union members. I have to believe, though, that behind closed doors, he’s more willing to work with the MTA than he has let on so far.

  • Walder, Samuelsen square off with dismissals on the way

    As the temporary restraining order preventing the MTA from firing 475 station agents remained in place throughout the weekend, the relationship between the authority and the TWU grew icier. Transit announced layoffs in spite of the injunction, and MTA Chair and CEO Jay Walder has engaged in a war of words with TWU President John Samuelsen over what Walder believes to be antiquated work rules hampering the authority.

    The first development arrived on Saturday morning when Transit announced that 250 station agents would be let go this week while the remaining 225 would be retained until, as the agency anticipates, the temporary injunction is lifted. Since the restraining order focused only on keeping the booths open, the authority decided it could do so with a skeletal staff.

    “A temporary restraining order issued by a court Wednesday night put the MTA’s closure of the 42 subway booths on hold for now,” Transit said in a statement on Saturday. “In light of the order, the MTA is refraining from laying off the employees needed to staff those booths while the litigation proceeds. More than 250 of the station agents, however, are not required to keep those subway booths open, and those layoffs are now scheduled for next week to ensure that we achieve the maximum savings possible in light of the MTA’s budget shortfall.”

    According to the Wall Street Journal, those to be fired are the burgundy vest-wearing station agents who roam fare-control areas and help customers with directions and problems that may arise. Union officials have long maintained that station agents are an integral part of the system’s security, but the jury is decidedly out on that claim.

    The bigger labor-related headlines this weekend, though, concerned the clash between Samuelsen and Walder. Pete Donohue has the story:

    Rules embedded in labor contracts are hampering the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s efforts to increase efficiency – and save money, Walder told the Daily News. “That has to change,” Walder said. “It might mean some of our bus drivers aren’t as good at playing pool as they are now, but we might have to bear that cost.”

    Some bus depots have pool tables in crew rooms for drivers to use on their so-called swing shift, a period of time when drivers receive half-pay but aren’t behind the wheel. A typical bus driver’s schedule can span 12 hours: driving a route for four hours during the morning rush and another four hours in the evening rush, the peak travel periods when service is most needed. During the middle four hours – say, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. – drivers don’t have any work-related duties but are still on the clock.

    Transport Workers Union Local 100 President John Samuelsen bristled at Walder’s comments. “Our bus operators are away from their families 13, 14 hours a day and are compensated for it,” Samuelsen said.

    Donohue details have competing union contracts prevent the MTA from assigning drivers to shifts in other boroughs after rush hour, and the authority is instead left with idle workers. This work rule, though, seems to make some sense. The authority can’t expect to ask its drivers to commute to and from work twice a day just to avoid a few hours of downtime. The flexibility should come in reassigning drivers.

    Where Walder has a real gripe though is here, writes Donohue: “He also is miffed that when a driver who is behind the wheel eight hours a day calls in sick, he gets paid for the full 12-hour ‘run,’ including the swing span.” The sick day provisions have come under fire.

    I don’t expect the unions to budge right now. They’re being assailed on all sides as the MTA looks to cut its number of employees and scale back compensation practices. Walder, though, is taking this fight to the media. “We should have a well-paid and well-compensated workforce, ” he said to the Daily News. “but the quid pro quo of that is we should have a productive workforce. I think we have a series of work rules and practices that have developed over many years that are all about how people effectively get paid for not working. I think that’s really where the shame of the system is.”

  • The cost of a station agent injunction

    As the injunction stopping the dismissal of 475 station agents will last through the weekend, the MTA says the restraining order will cost it $100,000 per day. A hearing is set for Monday morning, and even if a Manhattan Supreme Court judge on Monday sides with the MTA, as the authority expects, Thursday’s injunction will have cost half a million dollars, adding to the agency’s sizable deficit. The TWU claims the MTA is obligated to hold hearings concerning the impact the firings will have on neighborhood safety, but I see neither a law mandating those hearings nor signs of any impact whatsoever.