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December 20, 2005

Union Rejects Contract Offer, M.T.A. Reports

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and SEWELL CHAN

Leaders of the transit workers' union rejected the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's latest contract offer last night, management officials said, as the city braced for the possibility of a transit strike for the first time in a quarter-century.

With just an hour before a strike deadline of 12:01 a.m. today, Tom Kelly, an authority spokesman, said it had put "a fair offer on the negotiating table."

"Unfortunately, that offer has been rejected by the Transport Workers Union, and they have advised us that they were going - that they are going - to leave the building, and going to the union hall," Mr. Kelly said. "The M.T.A. remains ready to continue negotiations." He offered no further details, and union officials would not discuss the developments as they headed into their private strategy session.

The developments capped a day of intense negotiations between the two pivotal figures in the talks - Peter S. Kalikow, the authority's chairman, and Roger Toussaint, president of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union - who bargained face to face yesterday for the first time since Friday, meeting for nearly 12 hours at the Grand Hyatt hotel next to Grand Central Terminal.

Stepping up the pressure, the transit union began a strike yesterday morning against two Queens bus lines, stranding 57,000 passengers in what the union portrayed as a prelude to a strike that would shut down the nation's largest transit system.

The union originally threatened to shut down the whole system on Friday, but pushed back the deadline to today, seemingly to increase its leverage by warning of a walkout the week before Christmas, one of the busiest weeks for retailers. The state's Taylor Law prohibits strikes by public employees and carries penalties of two days' pay for each day on strike.

As a result of all the threats and deadlines, many New Yorkers for the second straight week felt wildly off balance, straining to figure out how their children would get to school and how they would get to work or to doctors' appointments.

Some New Yorkers backed the transit workers, some saw them as greedy lawbreakers, and some said that both sides in the negotiations deserved the public's disdain.

Warning that a strike would be illegal, Gov. George E. Pataki and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg stepped up their campaign to pressure the union, with the mayor saying that a strike would be "reprehensible."

"The city and state and courts - everybody is going to enforce the law, and anybody that thinks that they can just go break the law is sadly mistaken," Mr. Bloomberg said. "There can be no winners in a strike - it's not going to force the M.T.A. to make a settlement. If anything, it's going to probably dig them in."

At rallies outside the governor's office and in Queens alongside the striking bus workers, Mr. Toussaint and many union members trumpeted their defiance, insisting that it was more important to obtain what they viewed as a just contract than to obey the law barring strikes. Mr. Toussaint said the union would not push back its strike deadline as it did on Friday.

"Unless there is substantial movement by the authority, trains and buses will come to a halt as of midnight tonight," he said at a rally for the bus workers in East Elmhurst, Queens.

With anger in his voice, he added, "We maintain, as we have in the past week, that threats are not going to produce a contract and are not going to work against us. And Governor Pataki should think carefully before he wags his finger at transit workers on television. We transit workers are accustomed to being threatened by transit managers, but we do not appreciate being threatened on public television."

City officials have prepared an emergency plan that would increase ferry service, allow taxis to pick up multiple fares, close several streets to traffic except for buses and emergency vehicles, and prohibit cars with fewer than four passengers from entering Manhattan below 96th Street during the morning rush. The city, alert to the threat of sabotage, is also deploying hundreds of police officers to secure subway entrances in the event of a walkout.

The main obstacle to an agreement, both sides say, is the authority's demand that the union, which represents 33,700 subway and bus workers, agree to pension plan that raises the retirement age for future transit workers to 62, up from 55 for current workers.

The transportation authority asserts that it needs to bring its soaring pension costs under control to stave off future deficits. But union leaders vow that they will not sell out future transit workers by saddling them with lesser benefits.

One idea being considered, one person on the authority's side said, was to drop the authority's demand to raise the retirement age for pension eligibility for new workers and instead have all transit workers contribute more toward their pensions.

Earlier yesterday, Mr. Toussaint hinted at some movement in the talks, saying that the union would reduce its wage demands to 6 percent a year, from 8 percent a year, if the authority promised to reduce the number of disciplinary actions brought against transit workers. The authority has offered raises of 3 percent a year for three years.

The union began its strike against two Queens bus lines, Jamaica Buses Inc. and Triboro Coach Corporation, in the hope of pressuring the authority to reach an overall settlement. The walkout angered many Queens commuters and caused many to squeeze into vans and taxis.

The 707 workers at the two bus companies have been without a contract for 33 months. The authority is taking control of those two companies and five others, and union officials assert that the strike against the companies is not prohibited because the authority has not taken full control of them.

The Public Employment Relations Board, a state body that oversees labor relations for government employees, did not issue a decision yesterday in response to a complaint that the union filed on Sunday, asserting that the authority had violated state law by including its pension demands as part of what it said was its final offer. The union has asked the labor board to seek an injunction ordering the authority to drop its pension demand.

At 9:15 p.m. yesterday, the board's executive director, James R. Edgar, said the board had not yet received the authority's legal papers replying to the union.

Many New Yorkers said a strike would disrupt their lives. Doreen Simon, 55, who lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and works as a housekeeper in Riverdale, the Bronx, said, "I'm going to stay home. What can I do? I can't take a cab to the Bronx. It's going to hurt."

The union has repeatedly urged Mr. Pataki to join the talks, trying to put the onus on him if there is a walkout. But the governor, like the mayor, says that the professionals at the authority should handle the talks.

Mr. Bloomberg said that a walkout would hurt many workers in the hotel, restaurant and garment industries who earn less than the transit workers. The transit workers average $55,000 a year with overtime.

"You've got people making $50,000 and $60,000 a year - are keeping the people who are making $20,000 and $30,000 a year from being able to earn a living," Mr. Bloomberg said. "That's just not acceptable."

Workers at the Metro-North Railroad and Long Island Rail Road are not expected to strike in support of transit workers. Anthony J. Bottalico, the chairman of the union that represents Metro-North engineers, conductors and rail-traffic controllers, said none of his members planned to strike.

However, two other unions, which represent Metro-North ticket collectors and track workers, have vowed to show solidarity with Local 100 by refusing to cross any picket lines, and they could conceivably delay, though not disrupt, regular train service.

* Copyright 2005The New York Times Company