NY transit union’s board OKs new contract

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The executive board of New York’s
Transport Workers Union voted to accept a new contract on
Tuesday, the union’s leader said, after a dispute that brought
the city’s subways and buses to a standstill last week.

The union’s board “voted overwhelmingly to approve the
proposed contract,” Transport Workers Union Local 100 leader
Roger Toussaint said at a televised news conference.

The new contract, which must be ratified by the union’s
34,000 members, provides for wage increases of 3 percent, 4
percent and 3-1/2 percent for the next three years, Toussaint
said.

The union’s dispute with the Metropolitan Transportation
Authority over pay, pensions and health care came to a head
last week as transit workers staged a three-day strike, causing
traffic havoc in America’s most populous city at the height of
the holiday season and costing the economy more than $1
billion, according to city officials.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg welcomed the agreement. “This
tentative contract provides the necessary cost-savings and
productivity to keep the MTA solvent, mitigate fare increases
and allow for vital investments in our transportation
infrastructure,” he said in a statement.

The union’s executive board voted overwhelmingly for the
contract, with 37 in favor and 4 against, with 1 abstention,
Toussaint said.

The new contract provides for a refund of member
contributions to pensions over the past several years, plus
medical coverage and health benefits coverage for retirees,
Toussaint said. It also establishes that workers will pay 1.5
percent of wages toward health benefit coverage.

The contract treats Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a paid
holiday each January and provides state disability insurance
for workers hurt on the job, plus extra pay for workers
assaulted in the line of duty.

The contract will “go a long way toward improving the
relations between the transit workers and the authority, and
establish a greater degree of respect and appreciation for the
sacrifices that our members undertake in this city every day,”
Toussaint said.