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M.T.A. and Union Clash on Pensions and Roving Conductors as Deadline Closes In
By Sewell Chan and Steven Greenhouse, Wall Street Journal
December 7, 2005
Ten days from a contract deadline, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is clashing with transit workers over its demand for cheaper pensions for new employees and has made a bold proposal: having subway conductors walk through train cars instead of staying in their booths.
Worried about large budget deficits beginning in 2007, the authority's chief negotiator said yesterday that the pension plan for nearly 34,000 subway and bus workers was unsustainably generous. He said the authority's pension spending for the workers soared to $453 million this year from $145 million in 2002.
With a sixth round of talks scheduled for today, the negotiator, Gary J. Dellaverson, said he would urge Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union to accept a plan that would give future employees pensions only after age 62.
Under the current system, in place since 1976, transit workers with 25 years of experience can retire at age 55 and receive pensions equal to half their salary.
"Maintaining this level of contributions to support this level of pension benefits over the long term is unsustainable," he said in an interview at the authority's headquarters. "It's not just true for us, but for other public employers."
The authority's contract with the transit workers expires at 12:01 a.m. on Dec. 16. On Saturday, thousands of union members will gather at the Jacob K.
Javits Convention Center to vote on whether to authorize a strike.
Complicating the negotiations, union officials said yesterday that before agreeing to a contract for the subway and bus workers, they would insist on a contract for 2,500 members at five private bus companies that used to receive city subsidies and are in the process of being taken over by the authority.
"Those workers have gone without a contract for more than three years," the union's president, Roger Toussaint, said. "We have told the M.T.A. that we cannot resolve the main contract without also resolving the contract for those workers."
Mr. Dellaverson, the authority's director of labor relations, said he could not discuss his stance on health coverage or wages because the authority had not yet made proposals to the union on those subjects. Nonetheless, he said he was convinced there was enough time to settle the outstanding issues and avoid a walkout.
Mr. Dellaverson disclosed a new idea yesterday: having the train operator take over the traditional responsibilities of the conductor - making announcements and opening and closing doors - and having the conductor walk through the cars, helping with security and answering questions from passengers.
New York City Transit, the authority subsidiary that runs the subways, began running conductorless trains in 1996. The program is used mostly on shuttles or short stretches of longer lines and only at off-peak hours.
In June, the agency removed conductors from the L line on weekends, but it was forced to restore them in September after an arbitrator ruled that the action violated the union's contract. Now the agency wants to remove conductors from the G at all times, starting this month.
Mr. Dellaverson said the new proposal, to begin on the L, would let conductors keep their jobs and remain on the trains - a goal of some rider advocates who say the conductors enhance safety - but increase their interaction with the public.
"Putting our employees with our customers is not something we are against," he said. In that vein, the agency has closed part-time station booths and reassigned the station agents as "customer assistants," standing near MetroCard vending machines and answering questions from riders.
The authority wants to consolidate several job titles, and merge the categories of train operator and conductor. Within that category, the jobs would still be separate and train operators would continue to be paid more than conductors.
But the authority wants each set of workers to be able to do the jobs of the other.
Mr. Toussaint said of the proposal to take the conductors out of their booths:
"They invented this new term and new concept directly in response to the arbitrator's decision, but the effect is to continue trying to nullify that decision."
Mr. Dellaverson scoffed at the union's proposal to revert to a far more expensive pension plan, one that would allow workers with 20 years of experience to retire at age 50 with full pensions. Such a plan was in place until 1973, and Mr. Dellaverson said he believed it contributed to the fiscal crisis of the mid-1970's.
Mr. Toussaint has asserted that the talks have been moving far too slowly, raising the prospect of a walkout even though state law bars strikes by public employees. He condemned the proposal for a cheaper pension plan for future employees.
"We are opposed to selling out our unborn," he said last week, in a reference to workers not yet hired. Last night, he said the current pension was "absolutely" nonnegotiable, adding: "Twenty-five/55 is our pension. We're not going to give that up."
Mr. Dellaverson said health outlays for transit workers were expected to jump to $380 million this year, from $262 million in 2002, and would continue to grow about 9.6 percent a year.
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