I'm going to try to respond to a few of your questions here Mark, and review the strike. Please let me state for the record though, that I'm doing some of this from memory, as many stories are now either gone or are buried in archives that require my purchasing them, which is something that I'm not inclined to do. I hate the gross over-charging that most newspaper sites seem inclined to collect for a story; $4.95 or more for one story, when you could have brought the entire week's newspaper for the same price. And as a computer consultant, I can assure you that it doesn't cost anywhere near that amount for them to archive the story on a hard disk.
But first, let me quickly say that I really don’t have a clue as to how Amtrak’s workers will be able to deal with the no contract problem, if Alex Kummant doesn’t live up to his promise to actually try to seriously get a contract. I am almost positive that workers will have to make some rules concessions to get one, like the bit about a sleeping car attendant being unable to work in the dining car, and I hope that the unions will allow themselves to be a bit flexible with things. I also hate to say it, but I do expect that they may have to accept some health contributions. But hopefully Amtrak will also negotiate in good faith, and really try to find the workers a contract that is fair, rewarding them with decent raises and perhaps a few extras for some of the concessions that again, I’m sure the unions will have to make.
If neither side budges, then I don’t know what they do. Frankly the best recourse is probably going to be trying to bring pressure to bear on Congress, and probably get the public at large involved. How they do that, I have no idea. But I don’t think that a strike is going to win the battle and it could well backfire into a loss of Amtrak in total, were a strike to last for very long, especially with regard to the long distance services.
State sponsored short hauls will probably get contracted out, assuming that they can get the equipment from Amtrak. Regarding the NEC, it’s really hard to say what could happen there, but I wouldn’t bet against an attempt at privatization. And that sadly I suspect would only hurt the public at large, and the union members who work for Amtrak.
Now, back to your questions and the MTA strike. I’m going to try to keep this organized, but I suspect that no matter what I do, I’ll end up bouncing around a bit.
The union contract expired on December 15th. IIRC, contract talks started in earnest in mid-October. Prior to that point, I don’t believe that there were any serious talks and I don’t think that either side really wanted any, although that later part is just my take on things. From October right up to December 15th, there were serious talks, although many of those talks did not involve the head honchos. Those talks, at least in the media, in typical fashion seemed to have more finger pointing and outrageous demands from both sides.
By the time we got to the crunch period, with all night talks and such, the major differences seemed to be:
Wages of course.
MTA wanted 2 year contract, union 3 years.
MTA wanted retirement age moved to 62 for new hires only, union no change for anyone from the current age 55 assuming that the worker has 25 years of service. (Note: Many workers, who were interviewed in the days leading up to the strike, actually believed that this applied to all workers. Whether it was deliberate or not I can’t say, but the union was definitely not making it clear that this change did not affect anyone currently employed. There was also a counter proposal by the MTA that would have kept the same retirement age, but required the new hires to pay a bit more money into the pension program than the current workers were paying.)
IIRC, the first two were finally worked out, leaving only the third.
Roger went on record publicly as stating that the main reason for declaring the strike was that last point. Yet the union made no counter proposal to the MTA’s two differing offers that they claimed were unacceptable, and proceeded out on the strike even though not one person walking the picket line would have been affected by the MTA’s proposals, and with the bulk of the membership believing that it would affect them personally. One reporter questioned some 200 workers IIRC, and about 95% of them believed that they were on strike because they personally would be affected by the pension issue.
The deadline of 12:01 AM December 16th, when the contract actually expired, came and went with no strike because of the ongoing serious negotiations. On the 19th, two small bus companies that had just been merged into the MTA’s control were struck under orders from the union board. Four days later, on December 20th is when the main strike actually started. This despite an order from a judge that forbade the strike and laid out in advance what the punishment would be. They didn’t just violate the law by walking out; they were now in contempt of court.
Now the following is conjecture on my part, based in part upon the news that was coming out at this time. I personally believe that the union President Roger Toussaint called the strike for the following reasons. One was without a doubt lack of progress on the sticking points. However, Roger was under immense pressure from a few union VP’s whom I personally believe want Roger out so that they can gain power. Roger has been around now for many years.
They are the ones that I and many others have referred to as the hot heads. They seem less willing to really negotiate and concede anything. And as we all know in today’s world, there must be some give and take from both sides. Neither can ever get everything that they want if an agreement is to be reached, especially when dealing with an entity that isn’t in a profit making role.
One of those hot heads was the one that I mentioned really turned the public against him and the union with his comment, after Roger ordered the workers back to work, that they had picked the date for the strike to ruin Christmas.
So back to my thoughts on the origin of the strike, after 4 days of no serious progress, pressure for a strike, pressure from those opposing Roger; Roger gave in and got at least one or two of his supporting VP’s to vote with him this time joining those wanting the strike. And so the Transit strike of 2005 was on.
There were also a few rumors running around within the union leadership that Roger had come back with the last MTA offer and left out a few points, which lead to those VP’s voting for the strike. Again, I stress that this was reported as a rumor, and I don’t recall any VP actually going on the record to state that Roger had withheld info.
Now back to some facts, in NY State there is a law called the Taylor Law. It prohibits public employees from striking for any reason. It also carries with it rules whereby either side can declare an impasse, the Governor I believe can declare an impasse, and perhaps even a judge, and send the dispute to binding arbitration. The one advantage of the Taylor Law is that clause, as unlike the Amtrak situation, the employees could have by now declared an impasse and arbitrators would have forced a contract on both sides.
So while, in theory, the ability to strike is taken away from the union, management can’t just keep blowing the union off either. Neither side really likes to go to arbitration, because they loose control over the negotiations, but at least there is some recourse that will get a contract done.
Let me also interject two other things here, one the international TWU ordered the local not to strike. Two, several unions from Metro North at the time of the strike, had been working without a contract for close to two years already. And they hadn’t yet struck Metro North, owned and operated by the same MTA that runs the subways.
That fact is one thing that angered me personally with the TWU’s strike, is the fact that they didn’t really try. Working for one whole year without a resolution is definitely trying, very hard in fact. I’d have been happy if the TWU had given the people of NY 3 to 6 months, before walking.
Not quite 3 days after starting the main strike, 60 hours to be exact, faced with fines against the Union that doubled each day of the strike, a court order for Roger and the other VP’s to appear in court where they most likely would have been arrested and jailed, as well as rumors that the judge was about to start fining the individual workers $25,000 per day (and to do that he was planning to freeze the worker’s bank accounts); coupled with the arrival of three State mediators, Roger ended the strike despite the opposition from those who had forced the strike in the first place.
It should also be noted that each worker who did strike, was already being punished via the judge’s earlier order and the Taylor Law that requires one day’s pay for each day that they walked a picket line. So for each day that they were out, they lost 2 two day’s pay, one because they didn’t get paid for not working and one day as punishment; and it was indeed deducted from their pay checks. By the way, over 1,000 workers did actually show up for work on the first day of the strike, and the numbers went up each day after that.
In any event, everyone went back to work and negotiations resumed. About a week later on December 28th, is when the MTA and Union leadership finally agreed on a contract with the help of the mediators. Again going in part from memory and in part from what I can still find on the net, here’s how things came down.
The union won on the pension plan. However, in return they now had to contribute 1.5% of their health costs, the give back for winning on the pension idea. So while they saved the earlier retirement date for future workers, both present and future workers now have to contribute to health care. The final raises remained the same as before the strike, as did almost everything else.
However, in the final analysis, every worker who did actually go on strike lost money for the first year of the new contract. Between the 6 days of lost pay, plus the contribution for health care, their total take home pay for that first year went down from the prior year’s total, despite a 3% raise in that first year. Those that did remain on the job, or at least went back early, did actually increase their take home for that year.
This is the contract that the workers voted down by 7 votes, 11,234 to 11,227.
Just over a year later, 2 days after the old contract had expired December 17th and after things went to arbitration, the arbitrator’s ruled that the contract voted down would by and large be the new contract. There was one change that was made by them I believe, that being that the new contract would now expire on January 16th, forever removing the threat of another Christmas strike. Or at least it makes it much harder and more painful for the union to ever do that again.
A few other things that fell out of this are:
Roger went to jail in April for 10 days for defying the judge’s order, but they were able to keep the rest of the union leadership out of jail. IRRC, Roger’s sentence was commuted after he had served about 5 days.
Each union officer was fined various amounts.
The union fines were reduced to $2.5 Million dollars, an amount that will still almost bankrupt the local. They are appealing this and I haven’t heard if that appeal has been heard yet or not.
The MTA no longer had to withhold union dues from the worker’s pay checks. The union would have to collect the dues themselves directly from the membership. They could reapply after 90 days to the court for the right to have automatically deducted from the membership’s paychecks, but that was only an application to have that right granted once again. There was no guarantee that they would ever regain that right. I’ve never seen anything that I recall one way or the other on this. So I don’t know if dues are now back to automatic or not, although I’m guessing that the judge did eventually relent.
And I think that wraps things up. Again, I’ll repeat that most of the above is the best representation of things, based upon what I can still find on the net coupled with my memory, which is certainly not infallible. I did interject a few personal notes, along with one bit of conjecture, which I believe I’ve clearly identified as such.
Discussion is fine, but I'm afraid that we're starting to head in a dangerous direction.
