New York Transit Union Board Votes for Partial Strike Initially

“A deadline is a deadline,” reads the slogan on the back of red T-shirts worn by some members of Transport Workers Union Local 100.

Except when it isn’t.

The threatened full-blown strike of approximately 34,000 subway and bus workers didn’t happen at 12:01 a.m. Friday -- but it could occur at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday.

At the end of an all-night negotiating session, Local 100’s executive board voted early Friday to strike after rejecting what the Metropolitan Transportation Authority called its final contract offer.

But a citywide walkout -- which would have inconvenienced millions of riders and gridlocked city streets at the height of the holiday shopping season -- was, for the time being, averted.

Instead, in statements whose specifics changed throughout the day, union officials threatened a partial strike at two privately owned Queens-based bus lines, with a possible full strike to begin Tuesday if a contract agreement is not reached by 12:01 a.m. that day.

“We are prepared to continue negotiating with the MTA, but the MTA cannot continue to negotiate through threats,” Local 100 President Roger Toussaint said at a union hall news conference in which he told reporters that “givebacks” on health and pension plans for new employees would “put lock and key on every transit worker’s access to the middle class.”

Twenty-five executive board members and Toussaint voted to strike, with two abstaining and 14 voting against the resolution, which some said sacrificed the bus workers when the entire local should have walked.

The unexpected move for a partial strike could allow the union to sidestep the financial penalties outlined in the Taylor Law, which prohibits public workers from striking but does not apply to private employees such as those union members employed by Triboro Coach Corp. and Jamaica Buses Inc., the lines that may strike.

Both lines are scheduled to be transferred to MTA control early next year.

It was not clear when the partial bus strike might take place.

Union spokesman David Katzman said he thought it was planned for 12:01 a.m. Monday, saying: “We don’t begin transportation strikes in the daytime ... because it would leave people stranded.”

MTA officials said the talks hit an impasse when Toussaint rejected their offer of a three-year contract with annual 3% compounded raises.

Under the MTA’s proposal, new employees also would pay 1% of their earnings toward health insurance premiums and would have a pension plan with a retirement age of 62.

The current plan allows for retirement at 55.