Second Ave. Sagas

Category: TWU

  • Facing tough times, transit unions come under fire

    ATUTWU200 Over the last few months, the MTA’s generally tenuous relationship with its union workers — and in particular, the Transport Workers Union — has become strained, and it’s starting to fray. The trouble started when an arbitration panel awarded the TWU 11 percent in raises over the next three years, and although the process was called “binding arbitration,” the MTA could legally appeal the decision on certain grounds. When the agency opted for this path, labor peace started to deteriorate, and things are slowly coming to a head.

    We start first with a non-TWU story and with a follow up to last week’s tragic accident that left a pedestrian dead after getting struck by a bus while he was cross the street. On Tuesday, I reported that this bus driver had been suspended for texting behind the wheel. Protests by the Amalgamated Transit Union, though, led to a simple suspension.

    Yesterday, the Daily News added a shocking twist to this sad story. The driver had been posting nasty notes about passengers on his Facebook page. According to the report, these notes were about “killing, committing suicide and beating people.” Now, the MTA Inspector General Barry Kluger has initiated a probe to find out why Transit did not initiate a psychological evaluation of Jeremy Philhower and why the agency faced such fierce resistance when they it tried to dismiss this driver. This accident — seemingly avoidable — should lead to a change in the way these cases are handled by both the unions and the MTA.

    Next, we arrive at an Op-Ed by Nicole Gelinas of the Manhattan Institute. She takes the MTA to task for its role the TWU arbitration process:

    Arbitration likely was a ruse, although we don’t know for sure. We can guess that neither Gov. Paterson nor the MTA thought that awarding huge raises would fly publicly, especially when the MTA needed a multibillion-dollar bailout.

    But nobody wanted to annoy the TWU. It seems likely that the arbitrators were brought in to insulate the pols from public anger. Just two weeks ago, Paterson maintained this fiction, saying that, though “we don’t have the money,” the arbitrators “probably made the correct ruling technically.”

    And the MTA wasn’t exactly careful, on behalf of the taxpayers, to assure a pristine process. It was almost unbelievably outrageous, as we learned long after the fact, that the “indepen dent” arbitrator on the three-man panel — former Deputy Mayor John Zuccotti, who represented the public — agreed, with the MTA’s support, to fork over his $116,000 “fee” to a TWU-controlled charity.

    That is, the MTA used a supposedly independent process to wash a payment back to its “adversary” in the arbitration.

    Gelinas calls for the state legislature to fix the way the MTA negotiates with its unions. She wants to see an end to what she terms “backroom deals,” and she wants the authority, going through some lean economic times, to be able to exert pressure on the unions to get more out of their workers. The politics of Gelinas’ Manhattan Institute may be more to the right than those of many New Yorkers, but she raises some questions here for the MTA that need to be aired.

    Finally, with the MTA Board set to meet next Wednesday, the TWU will host another Day of Outrage protest in front of MTA headquarters. Meanwhile, the Union has appealed to the U.N.’s International Labor Organization in an effort to get New York State’s anti-strike Taylor Law repealed. Although the United Nation’s labor commission has no binding authority over New York state law, a statement against the Taylor could, in the words of one labor expert, “influence decisions by local lawmakers.”

    I get the sense that, if the law allowed them to do so, the city’s transit unions would be on the verge of a strike. As the MTA’s appeal continues, as cost-cutting measures come into play, these labor wars will only grow more acrimonious.

  • TWU exec takes the low road at MTA meeting

    The TWU and the MTA are engaged in something of a fight right now. After agreeing to binding arbitration over a labor contract, the MTA has appealed an award of an 11 percent raise for the TWU on the grounds that the arbitration panel made errors of law in considering the agency’s ability to pay. Despite the use of the word “binding” in the arbitration format, this appeal is legally permissible, and TWU workers have been loath to recognize that truth.

    In a sense, then, as the MTA and TWU are engaged in a legal fight, the two sides are also engaged in a public relations battle. The TWU is trying to portray the MTA as a management-heavy organization intent on paying its countless executives far more than they deserve. On the other hand, the MTA is trying to make the case that the 11 percent raises over the next three years will foist more unscheduled fare hikes onto a public already paying too much for its subway service.

    And so yesterday, at Jay Walder’s first MTA Board, the TWU opted to take the low road. Andreeva Pinder, a station agent and TWU executive, resorted to a playground insult in her discussion about the elmination of the station agents. “Month after month we beseech you to safeguard your riders. But you people are so removed from reality,” Pinder said. “You guys are just a bunch of doody-heads.”

    That is a direct quote from Pinder’s testimony. She got up in front of a bunch of MTA executives and called them doody heads. No wonder people don’t think too highly of MTA employees. Pinder, as those with long memories may recall, once had to be forcibly escorted out of an MTA Board meeting when she spoke for 30 minutes instead of the allotted three.

    Words such as these do no one any favors. First, Pinder’s initial claims — that the lack of station agents has led to some sort of MTA-produced anarchy — simply isn’t true. At the entrances now lacking station agents, the subways still operate with the same old efficiency. Crime is not up, and straphangers are not getting hopelessly lost. Meanwhile, resorting to childish names might sound funny at the time, but it’s tough to earn the respect of a skeptical public even if Pinder may have tried to make a valid point.

    In the end, this fight will continue, and if yesterday’s words were any indication, it may get nastier before it is resolved. I’m no expert in arbitration law and cannot proffer an opinion on the outcome of the MTA’s appeal. If the courts, though, side with the agency, an all-out labor war could ensue.

    * * *

    In other arbitration news, John Zuccotti, the arbitrator who awarded the TWU its raises, billed the MTA $900 an hour for his work, and the new MTA leadership is outraged. The bill came to $400,000 for his services, and although the MTA and the TWU are to split the total, anonymous MTA board members were outraged that former head Elliot Sander negotiated such a rate. George Nicolau, another arbitrator, charged just $34,000. Someone somewhere down the line negotiated a bad deal.

  • A defense and another Day of Outrage from the TWU

    As the MTA continues to fight the TWU’s arbitration victory, the Transit Workers Union will keep on protesting the authority’s actions. Yesterday, union lawyers filed a response to the MTA’s appeal in the Manhattan Supreme Court. As Pete Donohue reports, the 67-page appeal claims that an 11 percent raise over three years is “just and reasonable,” the legal standard for the arbitration award. Meanwhile, the union will stage another Day of Outrage next Tuesday. This time, transit workers will march from Cadman Plaza across the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall at 4 p.m. on Oct. 28. For more info, check out the Local 100 poster announcing the protest.

  • Walder to continue fight against arbitration award

    For the first time since assuming his duties as MTA CEO and Chairman, Jay Walder said yesterday that he would continue the MTA’s legal battle against the TWU arbitration award. Speaking with Daily News reporters yesterday, Walder said the wage reward would cost the MTA $350 million over three years at a time when the agency can least afford it. As is their legal right, the MTA’s lawyers are arguing that the arbitration panel made “factual and legal errors” in awarding TWU workers 11 percent raises over the next three years. Although Walder has offered to meet with current TWU head Curtis Tate, the interim president has so far declined the meeting, and Walder won’t stop the arbitration appeal. “The MTA started the process before I arrived,” he said. “That process is continuing, and I support the process. I think we should go ahead.”

  • A little-noticed ‘Day of Outrage’

    For the TWU protesting the MTA’s legally permissible move to appeal a binding arbitration decision, yesterday was officially a “Day of Outrage.” The TWU hosted two protests at depots around the city, and unofficially, a text message circulated urging a slowdown. Union members were supposed to be meticulous in adhering to rules, and supposedly, this new-found awareness for regulations would lead to slower service along the city’s bus and subway routes. As The Times reports, though, this Day of Outrage went by unnoticed.

    For a union trying to make waves, the problem is one of expectancy and variation. It’s too hard to tell when our commutes are slower than they should be because slowdowns happen all the time. Someone pulls the emergency break; there’s a stalled train or a smoke condition; trains creep along tracks because of construction. Yesterday, in fact, my Brooklyn-bound F train sat at Carroll St. at 1 p.m. for about 10 minutes with no audible announcement. It could have been due to the Day of Outrage, but it was probably due to the workers digging up the express tracks on the Culver Viaduct. We just don’t know.

    If the TWU wants to make a wave and gain public attention, they’ll have to do more than attempt to slow down a notoriously unpredictable mass transit system. They were outraged yesterday, but no one noticed.

  • The TWU doth protest much

    TWUProtestPoster As the MTA continues to work on its appeal of the TWU’s arbitration victory, the union is fighting back. Although the transit agency claims it cannot afford to give its workers a mandatory 11 percent raise over the next three years, the union is urging the authority to respect the law. Until now, protests have largely been directed at MTA headquarters and Mayor Bloomberg, who supports the appeal, but next week, Straphangers will begin to fill the effects of a disgruntled TWU.

    On Wednesday, Oct. 14, TWU members are going to participate in what leadership is calling “A Day of Outrage.” Union heads are calling for the participation of “all divisions, all members,” and the transit slowdown could make for a messy commute. The TWU says they are not asking their members do anything illegal or even anything at all, but that excuse seems far too convenient to me.

    Pete Donohue has more about the potential protests:

    Straphangers beware: your commute could take longer next Wednesday because of the simmering contract dispute between transit workers and the MTA. A text message urging bus drivers to “slow it down” during a “day of outrage” circulated among drivers in at least four depots on Thursday. “Do everything by the book,” the text message making the rounds urged. “Slow it down. Pass it on.”

    Some subway workers told the Daily News they hadn’t received the call to action – but said it wouldn’t take much for underground workers to go on the offensive. “There’s an awful lot of anger out here right now,” a motorman said…

    A spokesman last night said the union is not involved in the current texted call to action. “These texts are either made up or intended to misrepresent,” the spokesman said. “They did not originate from TWU directly or indirectly.”

    Still, track worker and TWU presidential candidate John Samuelsen said he wouldn’t be surprised if there’s “a spontaneous fight back against what transit workers see as an attack by the MTA. I think the MTA underestimates the resolve of transit workers to take action into their own hands.”

    I’ve said this before, and I will say again now: If the TWU starts making life miserable for commuters, they will quickly lose any public support they may have right now. Although I don’t believe the arbitration ruling was a fair one for the MTA and I firmly believe in the MTA’s procedurally and substantial right to seek an appeal, the TWU can make a strong case for public sympathy. The decision, after all, was supposed to be binding. Yet, once the TWU starts messing with the public, riders will respond in turn.

    For now, I’m not buying the TWU’s argument that this direction for a slow down didn’t come from the union. They’re actively promoting it on their website. I see that, and I assume a connection as most people would. This is a dangerous game the TWU and MTA are playing against each other, and no matter who wins, the straphanging public may be the biggest losers.

  • Inside the legal fees for the MTA/TWU dispute

    The Post today reports that the MTA has already spent $1.2 million in legal fees to fight the binding arbitration decision that guaranteed TWU workers 11 percent raises over three years. Of course, everyone is outraged — OUTRAGED! Curtis Tate, acting TWU boss, called it “this ridiculous waste of public resources.” Gene Russianoff, slightly less hyperbolic, questioned the outside expenditures: “They spent a lot of dough, and I wonder why they can’t do more of that in-house.”

    Of course, anyone with a little knowledge of the legal world would have an understanding of the situation. The MTA stands to lose hundreds of millions of dollars a year if the arbitration is upheld. Furthermore, outside law firms have the expertise and manpower to adequately combat a so-called binding arbitration decision. While the MTA’s in-house counsel can provide support, the lawyers at Littler Mendelson are much better suited for the task. The $1.2 million for a corporation the size of the MTA is but a drop in the legal bucket, and although the story makes for populist outrage, it’s a non-starter.

  • The politics of the TWU

    While Democratic mayoral candidate Bill Thompson is facing long odds and a distinct financial disadvantage in his efforts to unseat Michael Bloomberg, Thompson is earning himself some powerful union friends. Today, Michael Grynbaum explores how the TWU Local 100 arm has become a de facto powerhouse for Thompson. Because Bloomberg has developed an antagonistic toward the TWU and because he continues to oppose the mandated 11 percent raises the transit workers won in binding arbitration earlier this year, the TWU has taken to the streets to oppose Bloomberg’s push for a third term. I wonder, though, if the TWU’s actions on behalf of Thompson are simply coming about because they oppose Bloomberg, and I fear for the future the state of transit labor relations if Bloomberg succeeds in beating Thompson. Currently enjoying a 16-point lead, Bloomberg won’t take kindly to the TWU’s outspoken opposition.

  • TWU protests set to give MTA ‘a taste of hell’

    As the MTA continues its push to appeal the binding arbitration decision that guarantees TWU Local 100 workers an 11 percent raise spread over three years, TWU organizers are fighting back. After a picket really last week in front of MTA Headquarters, the labor union is planning two more days of protests. The union members will rally from 4:30 p.m to 7 p.m. today in front of MTA HQ at 44th St. and Madison Ave. More ominous though is the transit-wide protest set for Oct. 14. It is being billed on the TWU’s website as the first day of outrage, and the TWU promises to give the MTA (and perhaps its riders) “a taste of hell.” I do believe a labor battle is brewing, and the city’s transit systems will serve as Ground Zero for the fight. [Daily News]

  • TWU members protest MTA appeal

    While the MTA is awaiting its day in court as it tries to appeal a binding arbitration ruling in favor of the TWU members, the union’s rank-and-file have taken to the streets in protest. According to Pete Donohue, more than 350 union members picketed outside of MTA headquarters this morning in advance of the monthly board meeting. According to union sources, their main targets were Mayor Bloomberg’s four board appointees. TWU officials believe the Mayor has urged the MTA to appeal the decision to secure an 11 percent raise for union workers over the next three years. “He’s the mayor of the city. He always has a say,” Curtis Tate, Local 100’s acting president, said. While workers will not shut down the system any time soon, labor relations between the MTA and its union are icy at best right now.