:yeey
New York City Transit Settlement Reached
By DEEPTI HAJELA
The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) - Transit union negotiators announced a tentative agreement Monday that would spare the nation's largest city a devastating strike, instead keeping New York's subways, buses and 7 million daily riders on the move.
The deal, reached after four days of intensive negotiations, was announced at the Grand Hyatt Hotel - the site where representatives of management and Transport Workers Union Local 100 began meeting Friday.
``It gives me pleasure to announce to the entire citizenry of New York that we have a proposed agreement,'' said union president Roger Toussaint. He said the union executive board would recommend its approval.
The new, three-year deal with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority would include a $1,000 lump-sum payment to workers in the first year, with 3 percent raises in each of the next two years, Toussaint said.
The deal would still need the approval of the 34,000-member union.
The lump-sum payoff allows Toussaint to deliver on his promise that the union would not accept any contract that denied them an annual raise. And it avoided the first citywide transit strike since 1980.
Throughout Monday afternoon, negotiators expressed optimism but stressed that the talks remained at a sensitive stage and that many details needed to be worked out. But it wasn't until 19 hours after a 12:01 a.m. deadline that a new deal was finished.
The settlement was reached as hundreds of Transport Workers Union demonstrators marched from the headquarters of the NYC Transit Authority in Brooklyn across the Brooklyn Bridge to a rally at City Hall.
``We weren't the ones who pushed this to a citywide stage, to a national stage,'' union secretary-treasurer Ed Watt told the rally. ``They started it. We'll finish it.''
Boxing promoter Don King joined the peaceful march, which drew a plethora of police, and called it ``pure Americana.''
Token booth worker R.S. Ray expressed the ambivalence of many union workers about a possible walkout.
``Nobody would win in that situation,'' he said. ``Including us.''
Just minutes before their contract expired Monday, union leaders opted to keep members on the job after progress was made on non-economic issues. Union board members gathered at midday Monday to begin discussing the status of a new contract.
Wages were the main issue Monday. The union had sought raises of 6 percent for each of three years, while the MTA, facing a billion-dollar deficit and a proposed fare increase, had offered no raise the first year and linked subsequent raises to productivity increases.
The union considered a strike despite a state law and an injunction that barred them from walking off the job. Workers could have been fined two days pay for each day on the picket line under the state's Taylor Law, which blocks public employees from striking.
Toussaint, angered by Mayor Michael Bloomberg's enthusiastic backing of the sanctions, told the first-term mayor to ``shut up.''
The starting salary for transit workers is about $33,000 a year, while senior workers earn as much as $47,000.
While union members wondered what the future held, subway and bus riders were kept in suspense throughout the day, waiting for word if they would be able to get home in the evening rush hour.
``I was wondering,'' said Michael Tuosto, 32, who works for Morgan Stanley, as he waited for a bus to Flushing, Queens at the end of the work day. ``You have to stay tuned to the news hour to hour to see if you're going to be able to get to work, or get home. It's a huge hassle.''
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he was pleased that the talks were continuing. The financially strapped city stood to lose up to $350 million per day in police overtime costs, lost revenue and productivity during a strike.
The expiration of the union's three-year contract raised the possibility of a strike - despite a state law and a judge's injunction barring the 34,000 TWU workers from walking off the job. Union members authorized a walkout more than a week ago.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Associated Press writers Marc Humbert and Timothy Williams contributed to this story.
New York City Transit Settlement Reached
By DEEPTI HAJELA
The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) - Transit union negotiators announced a tentative agreement Monday that would spare the nation's largest city a devastating strike, instead keeping New York's subways, buses and 7 million daily riders on the move.
The deal, reached after four days of intensive negotiations, was announced at the Grand Hyatt Hotel - the site where representatives of management and Transport Workers Union Local 100 began meeting Friday.
``It gives me pleasure to announce to the entire citizenry of New York that we have a proposed agreement,'' said union president Roger Toussaint. He said the union executive board would recommend its approval.
The new, three-year deal with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority would include a $1,000 lump-sum payment to workers in the first year, with 3 percent raises in each of the next two years, Toussaint said.
The deal would still need the approval of the 34,000-member union.
The lump-sum payoff allows Toussaint to deliver on his promise that the union would not accept any contract that denied them an annual raise. And it avoided the first citywide transit strike since 1980.
Throughout Monday afternoon, negotiators expressed optimism but stressed that the talks remained at a sensitive stage and that many details needed to be worked out. But it wasn't until 19 hours after a 12:01 a.m. deadline that a new deal was finished.
The settlement was reached as hundreds of Transport Workers Union demonstrators marched from the headquarters of the NYC Transit Authority in Brooklyn across the Brooklyn Bridge to a rally at City Hall.
``We weren't the ones who pushed this to a citywide stage, to a national stage,'' union secretary-treasurer Ed Watt told the rally. ``They started it. We'll finish it.''
Boxing promoter Don King joined the peaceful march, which drew a plethora of police, and called it ``pure Americana.''
Token booth worker R.S. Ray expressed the ambivalence of many union workers about a possible walkout.
``Nobody would win in that situation,'' he said. ``Including us.''
Just minutes before their contract expired Monday, union leaders opted to keep members on the job after progress was made on non-economic issues. Union board members gathered at midday Monday to begin discussing the status of a new contract.
Wages were the main issue Monday. The union had sought raises of 6 percent for each of three years, while the MTA, facing a billion-dollar deficit and a proposed fare increase, had offered no raise the first year and linked subsequent raises to productivity increases.
The union considered a strike despite a state law and an injunction that barred them from walking off the job. Workers could have been fined two days pay for each day on the picket line under the state's Taylor Law, which blocks public employees from striking.
Toussaint, angered by Mayor Michael Bloomberg's enthusiastic backing of the sanctions, told the first-term mayor to ``shut up.''
The starting salary for transit workers is about $33,000 a year, while senior workers earn as much as $47,000.
While union members wondered what the future held, subway and bus riders were kept in suspense throughout the day, waiting for word if they would be able to get home in the evening rush hour.
``I was wondering,'' said Michael Tuosto, 32, who works for Morgan Stanley, as he waited for a bus to Flushing, Queens at the end of the work day. ``You have to stay tuned to the news hour to hour to see if you're going to be able to get to work, or get home. It's a huge hassle.''
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he was pleased that the talks were continuing. The financially strapped city stood to lose up to $350 million per day in police overtime costs, lost revenue and productivity during a strike.
The expiration of the union's three-year contract raised the possibility of a strike - despite a state law and a judge's injunction barring the 34,000 TWU workers from walking off the job. Union members authorized a walkout more than a week ago.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Associated Press writers Marc Humbert and Timothy Williams contributed to this story.
