December 27, 2005

Transit union bosses endorse new contract

Transport Workers Union Local 100 President Roger Toussaint, the man who led New York City bus and subway drivers on a three-day strike last week, tonight announced that his union leaders have approved a new contract with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The rank-and-file tranist workers will still have to ratify the contract to make it official.

From Toussaint's statement:

I’d like to announce the result of the vote that just occurred upstairs by the local executive board, that by a vote of 37 in favor and four against with one abstention, voted overwhelmingly to approve the proposed contract presented to our board and to forward that contract to the 33,000 members of Local 100 for ratification.

This contract provided for wage increases of 3 percent, 4 percent and 3.5 percent in these next three years. It provides for a refund of member contributions to pensions over the past several years. It provided for medical coverage and benefits coverage for retirees so retirees don't lose coverage when they move from active life to retired life. We did agree to establish a premium for health benefit contributions of 1.5 percent of wages.

Further, contract provides for Martin Luther King Day as a paid holiday for all transit workers. It provides state disability insurance in the event a transit worker is injured on the job, in addition to other leaves that are available, it provides for additional assault pay for bus operators, train operators and conductors when they’re subject to assaults on the job. It provides for full paid schooling for 40 transit workers each year so they can advance their careers paid for from a special training upgrades fund.

It provides for the beginning, for the first time of paid maternity leaves, stipend, to female members when they undergo a pregnancy.

It provides for a supplemental payment to our trades titles in recognition of the disparity between what transit workers are paid compared to similar titles and trades on the outside. It provides for increasing the death benefit for members wh die in the line of duty. It provides for widows’ continued coverage of all widows’ for members who died in the line of duty of the health benefits.

And it provides for a host of other provisions that go a long way to helping improving the relations between transit workers and the Authority and establishing some greater degree of respect and appreciation for the sacrifices that our members undertake in this city every single day, moving over 7 to 8 million riders every day and waking up every morning at 3, 4 o’clock every morning and making sure that this city moves.

December 27, 2005 11:02 PM in Transportology

®Copyright 2006, All Rights Reserved