Monday, January 23, 2006

The New York Times, January 22, 2006, Sunday

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
The New York Times

January 22, 2006 Sunday
Late Edition - Final

SECTION: Section 1; Column 6; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 30

HEADLINE: Deal Voted Down At Last Moment

BYLINE: By SEWELL CHAN

BODY:
Until about 12 hours before the noon deadline on Friday, when the tide suddenly shifted, New York City transit workers seemed poised to approve the proposed contract their leaders had negotiated with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, a union official said yesterday.

For more than a week, there were slightly more votes to ratify the settlement than to reject it, until about midnight on Thursday, said the official, James P. Mitchell, the elections chairman for Local 100 of Transport Workers Union.

By a 7-vote margin out of 22,461 ballots cast, union members rejected the contract on Friday, scuttling the deal reached after the subway and bus strike of Dec. 20 to 22.

Mr. Mitchell said there was no last-minute surge in the number of votes, but the sudden shift suggests that most members who remained undecided until the final hours ended up opposing the deal.

''Voters who were lukewarm on the contract may have sat out the vote assuming it was going to pass anyway, because most contracts pass, and newspapers and commentators were hailing it as a pretty good deal,'' said Ken Margolies, a labor organizer who teaches in the New York City extension program of the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

Mr. Mitchell said there were no plans for a recount or a revote, despite some complaints about the voting process.
Members began voting by phone and Internet the week of Jan. 8, using a unique numeric code sent to them by the American Arbitration Association, which conducted the election.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com