If you only read one sentence from this article, let it be this: If we can’t get a good contract under these circumstances, then when would we EVER get a good contract? 

At first glance the contract we’re being asked to vote on looks like the last few recent contracts; not great, but not terrible. However it actually has a very massive giveback in the form of losing our right to go on traditional Medicare when we retire and to be placed into the for-profit Medicare “Advantage” program. This means your medical decisions are now out of the hands of your doctor and in the hands of a for-profit company who can and will deny medically necessary care to you when you retire so they can increase their already bloated profits. At this time there are many people who work for Transit and city government pointing out the differences between Medicare and Medicare Advantage on the internet, so that will not be the point of this article. What I hope to show you is that the current environment is PERFECT to take this to arbitration.

When the union tries to talk you into voting “yes” for the contract, they’ve been “threatening” that it would go straight to arbitration if we vote “no.” First of all that’s just not true. If we vote “no” the contract goes back to the bargaining table. Second of all, if you do a deep-dive analysis into the last time we went to arbitration, you’ll see that we have all the advantages if we go to binding arbitration! 

In the 2009 arbitration award, (https://www.twulocal100.org/sites/twulocal100.org/files/TIA2008-021-022.pdf) the arbitrator used 6 criteria to decide on how to rule. 1) Comparability 2) Overall Compensation 3) Ability to Pay 4) Cost of Living 5) Interest and Welfare of the Public and 6) Other Factors, as per Section 209.5 of the Civil Service Law.

1. Comparability 

The arbitrator decided that because we’re such a unique system, NYC Transit cannot really be compared to other transportation systems, so instead he used the most recent NYC contracts from 2008 to compare wages (DC37, NYPD, Corrections, and FDNY). This time around they would likely use the recent agreements with DC37, NYPD, and UFT (teachers) for comparison. While it appears our raises match or exceed that of these other unions, I believe our role during the Covid-19 pandemic should allow us to have bigger raises than the ones Local 100 agreed to. I’ll elaborate more in the Other Factors section.

• Overall compensation 

The arbitrator stated “The Panel recognizes the significant overall compensation of Union-represented employees and the supplemental benefits they receive. However, the cash compensation for bargaining unit employees, which averaged $64,226 in 2008, includes special premiums for overtime, night shift differentials, swing pay and spread pay. These premium payments, arising out of the demanding and unique nature of employment with the MTA, help sustain an extensive system that covers a large area and operates 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.” So even though we have good benefits, the arbitrator recognizes that cash is king, and that $64,226 in 2008 dollars ($90,665.28 in 2022 dollars) just isn’t cutting it.

According to the government watchdog group OpenPayrolls, the average MTA employee only earned $78,593 in 2020, and that includes the highest salaries such as then-NYCT president Andy Byford’s $325,600 averaged in there. 

• Ability to pay

This is the big one. The MTA says they can’t afford big raises, yet they’re swimming in cash. They were bailed out by the federal government multiple times during the pandemic because of lost farebox revenue. In 2022 the feds gave the MTA $6 billion to completely wipe away all the Covid financial losses. At the time, it was projected that even with the money there would be a $1.4 billion shortfall in 2025. 

Here is a list of all the revenue streams that were included in the budget last month to bailout the MTA. 

Unfortunately the first item, the $400 million in “efficiency savings,” is a nice way of saying concessions from the union. I wrote an article stating how this is an illegal act by the NYS legislature and the MTA (who asked that this provision be placed in the budget), and that an improper practice charge should be brought to the NYS Public Employment Relations Board https://progressiveaction.info/2023/05/03/mta-commits-major-improper-labor-practice-to-the-tune-of-400-million/.

However, leaving out the $400 million in efficiency savings and the $1.5 billion in casino money that may or may not materialize, this bailout adds up to over $1.7 billion; well over the $1.4 billion needed to close the gap for 2025, the year in which we would receive the last of our raises in the proposed 3-year contract. They also can’t claim that giving us higher wages would hamper future expansion projects such as the Second Avenue Subway extension or CBTC expansion. Their capital budget is overflowing with cash! They got billions from the federal government in President Biden’s landmark infrastructure bill, and they’re about to start getting a new permanent stream dedicated to the capital budget from the state in the form of congestion pricing. 

• Cost of living 

We already know how high inflation is. Would you believe me if I told you that the arbitrator cited inflation forecasts of only 2-2.9% and still gave us 4% wage increases because that’s what the other unions got? Well that’s exactly what happened! In 2023 we are being offered almost exactly what the other unions got, but this shows that an arbitrator is willing to give us a little bit higher than inflation if they think we deserve it. When we get to “other factors” I will go into depth as to why we deserve a little more than the other unions this time around. In terms of housing costs, median rents in Brooklyn hit a record high last month at $3,550/month and in Manhattan also hit a record high at $4,395/month. Queens wasn’t far behind at $3,402/month.

Trying to buy a home in this market is very difficult as well. Interest rates have skyrocketed in the last year as the Federal Reserve tries to taper down inflation. An unfortunate side effect of that is that the cost of owning a home rises dramatically. The current rates hover around 7%. 

• Interest and welfare of the public 

The arbitrator determined that since the MTA had the ability to pay, the public would not be negatively affected by decent wage hikes. In fact he made the case that the public would be positively affected in that we would have “an appropriately motivated workforce.” That argument made in 2009 would be amplified today. In the current labor climate since the pandemic, workers are no longer “just happy to have a job.” Back in 2009 anyone would jump at the chance to work for Transit because everyone else was laying off workers left and right. Unemployment was at almost 10% back then, while it’s sitting at just under 4% now.

On a more specific note to Transit, for the operating titles, one must give up having weekends off for likely a few years and must give up smoking marijuana until retirement. While that may sound funny, many people won’t give up those things for a job that barely keeps up with the cost of living. People are quitting schoolcar at higher rates than before, which is evident in the employee availability numbers still being below 2019 levels despite the MTA ramping up the number of schoolcar classes. The pandemic is officially over now and we’re still getting MTA alerts with “we’re running as much service as we can with the crews we have available.” This is a case where paying us more would actually result in a service INCREASE by having motivated crews and a higher retention rate. 

• Other factors 

The arbitrator used this section to highlight the fact that the TWU workers should get what the other unions got because a well motivated workforce benefits the riding public. In 2023 I believe that the workforce MUST be compensated for the hell we went through during the pandemic. We came to work every day not knowing if we would live or die, if we would catch the virus and bring it home to our loved ones (which many of us did), and we even watched 110 of our fellow union members die from the virus. Don’t let the union fool you; most unions are getting a cash bonus to go along with their wage increases. It’s a way that employers can pay you for the high inflation rate during the year that it happened, without having that “raise” compounded into future raises, even though the costs of goods and services compound over time. However, Local 100 has called their cash bonus an “essential worker bonus,” solely to make us feel like we got hazard pay. WE DID NOT. DC37 got a cash bonus and they mostly worked from home during the pandemic. UFT (teachers) not only got a bonus but they got bonuses IN PERPETUITY and they taught virtually!!! Another reason this isn’t hazard pay is because if you retired before we ratify the contract you won’t get the bonus even if you worked through the pandemic. Conversely, if you were hired before we ratify the contract you will get the bonus even if you didn’t work through the pandemic. 

Because the union only asked for “substantial” raises, I don’t know if an arbitrator would be able to give us more since it was such a vague demand. However there needs to be a contractual commitment from the MTA to lobby the state government who was given federal funds for hazard pay to give us the $25,000 we deserve. The fact that hazard pay was not addressed in this contract when that was our MAIN DEMAND coming out of the pandemic is utterly unacceptable. The fact that the MTA is trying to take away Medicare from our retirees and future retirees (us) when they asked to be hamstrung by $400 million in the state budget solely to be able to extract concessions from us that they normally wouldn’t have been able to get is also utterly unacceptable. New York State currently has an $8.7 billion surplus https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/01/new-yorks-massive-budget-surplus-gives-hochul-money-to-spend-00080724. There is no reason why they had to nickel and dime us in this contract. The money has to come from the government. Don’t forget the union was posting about all the bills that were in the works to give us our hazard pay that never came to fruition and how then-Governor Cuomo called for a 50 percent increase in pay for time worked during the pandemic for essential workers.

Vote NO for our right to receive hazard pay and vote NO to save our Medicare!