MTA Backs Off on Union Health Insurance Issue

In the first sign of movement in Southern California’s weeklong transit strike, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has backed off its demand to take control of a mechanics’ health-care fund, prompting their union to agree to come back to the bargaining table.

MTA officials said in a proposal circulated at 1 a.m. Monday that they would accept equal representation on the six-member board overseeing the fund, which is nearly insolvent.

The MTA also agreed to pay $4.7 million to shore up the fund, which is losing $500,000 a month, and to boost the agency’s monthly contribution to $1.9 million from $1.4 million.

The Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1277 agreed to discuss the proposal, and perhaps offer a counterproposal, at a 2 p.m. meeting today at the county Hall of Administration.

MTA board Chairman Zev Yaroslavsky called his earlier prediction that the strike might be settled by the end of last weekend “overly optimistic if not woefully naive.”

Union officials criticized the transit agency, saying that Monday’s concession was not enough. In exchange for withdrawing its demand for control of the health-care fund, the MTA is asking that the union bear financial responsibility for future cost overruns.

But union President Neil Silver said the request was really a disguised attempt to limit the amount that the MTA pays for health care.

He said the union was willing to share the cost of any increases, but not bear them alone.