The New York Times, January 26, 2006, Thursday

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
The New York Times

January 26, 2006 Thursday
Late Edition - Final

SECTION: Section A; Column 2; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 1

HEADLINE: M.T.A. RETURNS TO HARDER LINE IN LABOR TALKS

BYLINE: By SEWELL CHAN and STEVEN GREENHOUSE

BODY:
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority yesterday proposed a contract considerably harsher to the city's transit workers than the one they narrowly voted down last Friday.
Some labor experts said the authority's move was intended to pressure union leaders to accept binding arbitration -- but was likely to heighten labor unrest.
The authority's new offer keeps the provision that union members disliked most, a requirement that workers begin contributing 1.5 percent of their wages toward health-insurance premiums, and revives a proposal that had been taken off the table, that new workers contribute more to their pensions than current workers. It also includes provisions dropped early in the negotiations, like the expansion of one-person train operation.
In addition, the authority's new offer eliminates a provision that delighted many workers -- a pension refund that would give thousands of dollars to about 20,000 union members who made overpayments from 1994 to 2001.
The offer added yet another surprise chapter to a labor epic that led to failed negotiations in December, a 60-hour strike, a hard-wrought agreement that ended the walkout, and then, finally, the general membership's rejecting the overall contract settlement by just 7 votes.
While making its new, tougher offer, the transportation authority took steps to move the dispute to binding arbitration.
While some experts said the offer increased the possibility of another strike, others described it as a tactical move devised to show dissidents that the deal rejected last week was fair. Despite the request for arbitration, both sides could still come together to reach a new deal. A spokesman for Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union said last night that the union's leaders were studying the authority's new proposal and were not ready to comment.
The authority's proposal calls for the same total wage increases included in the settlement -- 10.9 percent -- but would stretch them out over 39 months, instead of the 37 months agreed to in the settlement. The longer contract would expire on March 15, 2009, removing the threat of a strike during the coldest months.
With the union leaders' insisting that they would not ''sell out the unborn'' -- that is, future workers -- the transportation authority, after the strike, abandoned its insistence that new workers pay 6 percent of their wages toward their pension plan, compared with 2 percent for current workers. In exchange, the union agreed to the new health care contributions.
But the authority jettisoned that crucial compromise in the new offer it made yesterday.
The authority's chairman, Peter S. Kalikow, left open the possibility of resuming face-to-face talks, but he suggested there was little to say to the union: ''While we can talk about issues, a lot of the financial incentives we have given them are probably as much as we can give.''
In papers filed with the New York State Public Employment Relations Board yesterday, the authority asked for arbitration, arguing that a voluntary resolution ''cannot be effected'' after the union's members rejected the contract.
Under the board's rules, the union has 10 working days to respond to the authority's petition. If the board concludes that the two sides are deadlocked and cannot reach an agreement on their own, it will help set up a three-member arbitration panel that can impose a new contract. But an arbitration panel might be barred from including in its decision two pivotal sweeteners that the union had won in the settlement: the pension refunds and improved health care benefits for some retirees under 65.
''We're going to do everything we can to resist binding arbitration,'' the union's secretary-treasurer, Ed Watt, said yesterday before learning of the authority's latest offer.
Harry C. Katz, dean of the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations, said the authority's tough stance appeared to reflect Gov. George E. Pataki's strong criticism of the settlement and in particular of the pension refunds, which would cost around $130 million.
''Management, by coming in this hard, is pushing the union leadership into the corner,'' he said. ''Then they look really kind of weak. That's not what you want. All they're going to do is possibly get another strike.''
Already yesterday, John F. Mooney said he and other dissident leaders were prepared to call for another strike. ''If they want to go to battle, we're ready,'' said Mr. Mooney, a union vice president who helped lead opposition to the settlement. ''We need to hold a unionwide membership meeting and the possibility of a strike has to be readdressed. The membership should strongly consider going on strike again.''
In an interview earlier this week, Roger Toussaint, the union's president, would not rule out another strike but cautioned against empty threats. ''There are people who can talk a fight without having to take responsibility for almost 34,000 troops,'' he said. ''I'm not making threats that are not believable and that I'm not serious about.''
Mr. Watt, who is Mr. Toussaint's top deputy, expressed frustration about the narrow rejection of the settlement. ''The previous deal was a really good deal,'' he said, urging workers to ''look at this as a union member and not as, 'What's in it for me?' '' Mr. Watt added that the union's executive board would meet on Tuesday and that decisions, if any, would wait until then.
Several labor experts said the authority's tougher proposal might have been designed to convince dissidents that they were wrong to vote down the previous deal, perhaps clearing the way for the two sides to reach a deal not much different from the rejected one.
Bruce C. McIver, a former chief of labor relations for both the city and the authority, said the union was in a weak position, with a divided membership having rejected a deal that its leaders negotiated.
''The M.T.A. has the upper hand right now,'' Mr. McIver said. ''Binding arbitration carries risks for the union. Rather than help Roger to solve this problem, this seems to put him in a much tougher position.'' Mr. McIver warned, however, that the authority's strategy could backfire. ''The danger is that they can lose public support if it looks like they're being gratuitously provocative,'' he said. ''At the end of the day they have to remember that these guys run the trains. It's hard work to heal the wounds after a strike. The angrier the work force is, the harder it will be to heal.''
The authority's latest offer also revived several provisions bitterly opposed by the union.
The offer calls for expansion of one-person train operation, a program begun in 1996 that gives the train operator the responsibility for opening and shutting the doors and making announcements, the traditional tasks of the conductor. It also calls for merging the jobs of conductor and train operator into a single job title, although the roles would remain separate. It would require station cleaners to perform new tasks, like removing graffiti, changing light bulbs and applying spots of paint.