MTA Prepares Its Strike on Worker Wallets

By Pete Donohue, Daily News, New York

Mar. 13–It’s payup time for the bus and subway strikers.

The MTA will start docking workers’ pay next week as punishment for their three-day strike in December, Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman Tom Kelly said.

The walkout, which the union contends was provoked during ultimately fruitless negotiations, was a violation of the state Taylor Law. Workers were not paid for their days on the picket lines. Now another three days of earnings will be deducted from two paychecks — one coming on March 23 and the other issued two weeks later, Kelly said.

“They staged an illegal strike, and this is part of the penalty,” Kelly said, adding that workers should give up any hopes the penalty will be waived.

“It [the deduction] will happen,” Kelly said.

State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s office, charged by state law with representing the MTA and enforcing the Taylor Law, has asked a Brooklyn judge to fine Transport Workers Union Local 100 $3 million.

Spitzer’s office also has asked Supreme Court Justice Theodore Jones to take away the automatic dues deductions the authority makes for Local 100 — another financial hit that could devastate the union. Even as he’s hit the union, Spitzer, who is running for governor, recently echoed workers’ criticism of the MTA on financial issues, calling the agency “inept.”

The union contends the MTA purposely lowballed its revenue projections in response to workers’ demand for a big raise — a charge the agency denies. “I would be hard-pressed to find an organization that is more inept, more poorly run with revenue projections \[and where\] the fundamental decision-making is more flawed,” Spitzer said during a speech before the state Conference of Mayors.

Spitzer, who would control the MTA if elected governor, stands by his words, a spokesman said.

“It’s his personal point of view,” spokesman Paul Larabee said. “That doesn’t conflict with his obligation . . . to prosecute those who violate the Taylor Law.”

The MTA has countered such shots by pointing out it has enacted a number of financial reforms. State Controller Alan Hevesi recently said the agency has cleaned up its act as far as financial reporting, singling out Executive Director Katherine Lapp for praise.

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