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| MTA & Union contract deals maybe reach soon thanks to Cuomo? (1286123) | |||
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MTA & Union contract deals maybe reach soon thanks to Cuomo? |
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Posted by Gold_12th on Wed Apr 16 23:54:24 2014 More than two years after its contract expired, the union representing New York City’s subway and bus workers is involved in intense negotiations with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and appears on the cusp of reaching a new contract, union and government officials said Wednesday.The officials said the union, Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, was likely to receive a sizable raise as part of a lengthy contract for 34,000 transit workers as the authority appears to have moved away from its earlier demands for a three-year wage freeze. Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials had been insisting that unions at NYC Transit and the Long Island Rail Road accept the same three-year pay freeze that the main state employee unions had accepted, although labor leaders predicted that the demand would lead to a strike by railroad workers in July. Vincent Pitta, a lawyer for the Transport Workers Union, said the anticipated deal for the union — by establishing a new, more generous pattern — could help avoid a railroad strike. Such a strike would affect 300,000 daily commuters and could hurt Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo when he is running for re-election. “Frankly, it’s an election year,” Mr. Pitta said. “I don’t think any governor would want a strike on the Long Island Rail Road in an election year.” Union officials said that John Samuelsen, the transport worker’s president, has been in frequent talks over the past two days with Thomas F. Prendergast, the authority’s chairman. Even though union officials reported major progress in the negotiations, Mr. Samuelsen sent a letter to Governor Cuomo on Tuesday night, urging him to intervene to help conclude the talks. “Absent your intervention, I do not see a path to resolving a number of difficult issues,” Mr. Samuelsen wrote. One union official said of the governor, “He’s the closer.” A transport union official said, “The deal could come on Thursday.” An authority spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. The authority is a state agency, and if it and the governor distance themselves from their previous demands for a three-year wage freeze, that could help improve Mr. Cuomo’s difficult relations with organized labor when many unions have voiced ambivalence and anger toward him. He has annoyed them with his threats of layoffs, his insistence on a three-year pay freeze and his championing of charter schools. Mr. Cuomo had found himself indirectly embroiled in a lengthy labor dispute involving unions at the Long Island Rail Road. In December, a Presidential Emergency Board set up to help resolve the dispute recommended that the railroad’s 5,600 unionized workers receive a 17 percent raise over six years, without any of the work rule changes the authority had sought. The authority said it would not accept that nonbinding recommendation, partly because it did not include a three-year wage freeze. In March, President Obama appointed a second three-person board of mediators, which many labor experts say, based on tradition, is likely to make recommendations identical or similar to the previous board’s. The appointment of the second Presidential Emergency Board in March puts into place a series of procedures and deadlines that bar the railroad unions from going on strike before July 19. If no deal is reached by then, the unions would be free to walk out. Government officials are debating how a deal between the Transport Workers Union and the authority could affect the city’s own municipal labor talks. Governor Cuomo had been urging city officials to adhere to the three-year freeze pattern that he had won from the state’s unions, but the city’s unions were bridling at such a demand. But if the Transport Workers win a contract that does not include such a pay freeze, that would mean there would be less pressure on Mayor Bill de Blasio to win a wage freeze. At the same time, if the transit workers receive a contract that contains substantial raises, that could increase pressure on Mr. de Blasio to award sizable raises, when the city already says it cannot afford the billions of dollars in retroactive raises that the city’s municipal unions are seeking. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/17/nyregion/after-2-years-mta-and-union-close-in-on-a-new-contract.html |
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