Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

Transit Workers Reach 'Tentative' Contract Deal With MTA, Union Says

 The new transit workers contract increased wages for
The new transit workers contract increased wages for "articulated" bus drivers.
View Full Caption
Flickr/Esoteric_Desi

FINANCIAL DISTRICT — The city's public transit workers came to a "tentative" agreement with the MTA on a new contract Monday, the workers' union president announced.

Negotiations over the contract, which expired at midnight Monday, had been ongoing for two months, with workers rallying outside MTA headquarters and giving speeches at the agency board's monthly meetings detailing the risks and hazards of their jobs.

The workers had taken issue with the MTA's stated plan of giving only 2 percent raises, which would only cover the increase of cost of living, arguing that it only allowed workers to live paycheck to paycheck.

"We won a tentative contract with solid raises, and other strong economic gains, moving transit workers well ahead of inflation and greatly improving their quality of life," TWU Local 100 union president John Samuelsen said in a statement Monday.

The "other strong economic gains" Samuelsen referred to include a raise for bus operators who drive larger "articulated" buses, which increase passenger capacity but are tougher to navigate through city streets.

Currently, those drivers receive an extra 25 cents and hour. Under the new contract, they will get an extra $1 an hour, a 300 percent increase, union officials said.

The union did not agree to any of the concessions sought by its management counterparts, from rule changes to higher health care co-pays, union officials said.

Samuelsen credited striking the deal to his union's "multi-faceted campaign that raised the awareness about the value transit workers have to this city, the dangerous nature of their work, and the sacrifices they make to move 8 million riders a day.”

The union and the MTA were reportedly cloistered in the Andaz Hotel on Wall Street all day Sunday in the hopes of reaching an agreement before the midnight expiration.

“We came to a dead stop more than once,” Samuelsen told AM New York. “The leadership team for the union was getting ready to leave the hotel more than one time. Discussion there was sometimes very tense.”

The Monday agreement relieves concerns of a potential transit worker strike.

The MTA did not respond to a request for comment.