The MTA is playing hardball with the TWU, which last week rejected ratification of the contract the MTA and TWU reached through the negotiations during the TWU’s illegal strikes. The MTA has taken its offer off the table, and instead has put a new offer on the table which is much more favorable for the MTA and a lot closer to the original proposal which set the TWU off on its strike in the first place.
The MTA struck back yesterday against transit workers who waged an illegal walkout last month and rejected a labor pact last week – proposing a contract far less generous than previous offers.
The new offer encompasses just about everything bus and subway workers found objectionable in past proposals – including demands that employees give more of their earnings for health and retirement benefits.
And it lacks every element the blue-collar workforce had embraced – such as pension refunds for some, and Martin Luther King Day as a new paid holiday for all.
Transport Workers Union Local 100 President Roger Toussaint declined through a spokesman to comment. But even before the MTA made its move yesterday, the local’s secretary-treasurer, Ed Watt, declined to rule out a second illegal strike.
“We’re not ruling anything out,” he said, adding another walkout was not imminent.
Goes to show that sometimes your best offer is the first offer, and you may be better off taking it. If anyone thinks the MTA is gonna cave now, they’re dead wrong. They’re in a position of strength, and the Union, despite its bravado, is hardly unified on the issue.
They blew it.
I also find it interesting that Toussaint’s office was unavailable for comment. This marks the first time ever that the camera-hogging loudmouth won’t get a comment in somewhere.
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