Tangled MTA Talks to Resume

As unions and Metropolitan Transportation Authority managers prepared to resume talks today in hopes of averting a crippling transit strike, negotiators found themselves struggling, none too successfully, with a number of thorny issues.

Among the sharpest are skyrocketing pension costs and a plan for split shifts that would put drivers on 10- to 12-hour workdays.

Backed into a corner by its traditional reluctance to raise bus and rail fares, MTA management hopes to erase a long-standing operating deficit by seeking a broad array of “givebacks” from unions.

But labor is digging in, realizing that driving the ambitious plans of MTA Chief Executive Julian Burke and others at the agency are a wide array of economic concessions the managers hope will solve their financial problems.

The strike situation remained fluid Tuesday, although a possible walkout by three MTA unions representing drivers and rail operators, mechanics and clerical workers now seems days away, if one comes at all.

Leaders of the United Transportation Union, which represents 4,300 bus and rail operators, and the Transportation Communications International Union, which represents 650 clerical workers, agreed with the MTA on Monday to extend their contracts five days, along with promises to give an additional five days’ notice to the public of any possible strike.

The Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents 1,860 mechanics, balked at a formal extension, raising fears that the mechanics would lead a strike before the end of the extension period. The ATU led a nine-day strike in 1994.

But Neil Silver, president of the ATU, reiterated Tuesday that he is not planning to call a strike, at least not for a few days. He said he is awaiting a formal response to his union’s last proposal to MTA negotiators.

“I laid out what our demands are, what we want, what we need. Now it is up to them,” Silver said. “If [the MTA] doesn’t deal with our package in a responsible way, action will be taken.”

There were no talks Tuesday between the transit agency and any of the unions, but the drivers and clerks are scheduled to meet with the MTA today. Silver said he was awaiting word from the agency.

Much of the problem appears to be that the MTA is attempting a massive revision of its labor contracts in an effort to reduce its projected operating deficit by up to $45 million a year.

The savings, should they be achieved, would provide an enduring legacy for Burke, a 73-year-old lawyer and nationally known crisis manager.

Burke took over the MTA three years ago, brought in by Mayor Richard Riordan, then chairman of the agency’s board of directors. At the time the MTA was plagued by massive cost overruns on its subway system, scandals, and pressure from Washington and Sacramento to reform itself.

These days, bus ridership is at a six-year high, the Red Line subway is completed and the MTA is drawing up an ambitious expansion plan that calls for the operation of new bus and/or light rail lines into Pasadena, East Los Angeles, the San Fernando Valley and the Westside.

But as it stands, the MTA is short of operating funds.

The agency faces a $438-million operating deficit over the next 10 years, according to agency documents, and the ambitious building plan would add $287 million to the deficit by 2010.

“MTA is blessed with a huge amount of capital dollars [to build new projects], but doesn’t have enough funds to operate those services in the future,” said an agency official. “In order to get more service, MTA operations need to be more efficient.”

From the beginning, MTA negotiators have taken the current bargaining out of the traditional give-and-take over wages, hours and benefits.

Commenting on the pattern of negotiations, Allan Lipsky, Burke’s second in command, said the demands pushing the MTA to the brink of a strike were not “crisis management.”

“This is a choice of strategic direction for this agency,” Lipsky said. “We are looking at the long-term cost of labor.”

MTA officials have been carrying their message to the public in an unprecedented barrage of radio and television ads.

Among their complaints are work rules that management contends date back more than 50 years.

“Bus drivers are still paid for the time it once took to [turn] in their change [from fares] at the end of the day, even though they haven’t had to make change for almost 30 years,” said an open letter to MTA customers printed as an ad in local newspapers.

But the unions are digging in, complaining that they are being forced to supply a disproportionate share of the savings being sought to pay for MTA management’s ambitious expansion plans.

The MTA is seeking major concessions from all three of the unions, particularly the drivers and mechanics, in an effort to drive down operating costs and to make it more competitive with other transit districts.

“The negotiations center almost primarily upon the MTA’s demands on the unions, and not the unions’ request to improve the working conditions of their employees,” said Lawrence Drasin, attorney for the bus drivers union, during a break in bargaining Monday.

“I’ve been representing this union for more than 30 years and this is the most difficult negotiation I’ve seen.”

Over the period referred to by Drasin, there were five work stoppages, with strikes ranging from 5 to 68 days.

One of the most troublesome issues for drivers is an MTA proposal to put more operators on a four-day, 40-hour, split-shift workweek.

The proposal stems from the need to have enough drivers to meet peak demand at the beginning and end of each workday.

Because a normal eight-hour shift cannot cover the peak periods at both ends of the day, the MTA has been requiring drivers to be available for 10 hours even though they work and are paid for only eight.

However, when drivers do have to work extra hours to cover for absent or vacationing colleagues, the MTA incurs high overtime costs.

MTA officials believe that the four-day, split-shift week--in which drivers would be paid for working 10-hour days but would have to be available for 12 hours or more--would have the effect of eliminating much of this overtime.

The drivers union argues that the long shifts, along with commuting time, would rob drivers of most of their day.

“These employees work very, very long hours now, and the MTA’s proposal to have them work even longer hours is not only not beneficial to employees, but we think it’s dangerous to the public,” Drasin said.

The mechanics are also targets of work rule changes.

MTA officials complain that current contracts require $24-an-hour mechanics to be brought in to do even minor jobs whenever a tool is used, even something as simple as a screwdriver.

They argue that employees earning $13 an hour could do small jobs, such as removing disposable bus window coverings, but are not allowed to now because the job requires using a screwdriver.

One desire of the unions is to get out from under a pension enhancement, achieved in an earlier contract, that has proved expensive.

Normally, MTA employees can retire with full benefits after 30 years.

But the enhancement allows them to retire after 23 years, or to take a lump sum payment, which can be as high as $250,000.

The problem is that the enhancement is being paid for mostly by employees, and the costs of the program are skyrocketing, taking more and more from employee payments.

Estimates are that pension payroll deductions could soon take 8% of an employee’s paycheck, more than twice what they were a few years ago.

Silver, president of the mechanics union, said he has made pension proposals to the MTA and is awaiting an answer.

“Under our plan, the MTA would save money and our members would save money,” he said.

Silver said a positive response on the pension proposal would go a long way toward healing some of the wounds opened up by the negotiating sessions.

Acceptance of the union deal, Silver said, “would give me a definite signal that someone is listening to me and what we have to say. If they are ready to go on that, we are ready to go on other things.”

Silver said he met with union members Tuesday and determined that, though some want a job action, most are “being tolerant with me.”

“They want a contract and they want it now,” he said.