New York transit union reaches tentative deal with MTA
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-28 11:49

The union representing city transit workers has reached a tentative agreement with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, five days after it ended a bus and subway strike that paralyzed the city during the holiday season, an MTA spokesman said.

The executive board of the Transport Workers Union was meeting Tuesday night at its Manhattan headquarters to discuss the tentative agreement and was expected to make a statement later.

MTA spokesman Tom Kelly said the deal had to be ratified by the union's executive board, its membership and the MTA's board of directors. He did not have details of the tentative agreement.

Negotiators for the 33,700-member Transport Workers Union and the MTA agreed to resume contract talks after the union went back to work. Some published reports said the union and the MTA negotiators were close to a deal on Tuesday, but both sides declined public comment at the request of a state mediator.

A Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) R-train streaks through the Canal Street subway station in downtown New York December 23, 2005.[Reuters]

A mediation panel led by Richard Curreri suggested last week that the union could resolve its contract issues with the MTA by agreeing to contribute more to health care in exchange for retaining its pension plan.

Union president Roger Toussaint fiercely opposed an MTA proposal of less generous pension benefits to new employees and had sought 8 percent raises for each of three years. The MTA first had offered 9 percent in raises over three years but increased the offer to 10.5 percent last week before the union decided to go on strike.

John Mooney, a member of the executive board who was opposed to ending the three-day strike, arrived at the union's headquarters for Tuesday's scheduled meeting but said he wasn't sure he would be asked to vote on a deal. He said he opposed any proposal that would ask union members, who currently pay no health care premiums, to contribute to the health plan.

"We've got a billion-dollar surplus," Mooney said, referring to the MTA's budget. "It'd be outrageous for us to even start attempting to give back."

The MTA passed a budget that spent much of its unforeseen surplus on underfunded pension plans and security improvements. The agency had said the money was a one-time surprise due to unexpectedly high proceeds from real estate taxes and unusually low interest rates and predicted its deficits would balloon to nearly $1 billion (euro840 million) in 2009.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg went so far as to characterize the extra money as "mythical" because most of it is essentially tied up.

The union's executive board called the strike at 3 a.m. December 20 and voted to return to work without a contract three days later. The union's contract expired December 16.

The shutdown of the nation's largest public transit system forced millions of daily subway and bus riders to walk, bike or squeeze aboard packed commuter train lines in the freezing cold to get around the city at the height of the holiday shopping season.

The mayor said over the weekend that businesses lost $1 billion (euro840 million) in revenue over the strike and that the city lost tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue and overtime expenses.