Put Contract On Express Tracks

We hope Roger Toussaint, President of Local 100 of the Transit Workers Union, can convince his membership to accept the contract settlement reached two weeks ago.
As specters of striking workers dance in our heads, Toussaint is emphasizing the benefits of the package to his union members.
He is quick to remind those attending his closed-door meetings that the onerous pension demands, the crux of the deadlock that prompted the 33,700 subway and bus workers to walk off their jobs, were dropped by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
The MTA had wanted new workers to wait longer before being eligible to collect full pensions or contribute a higher percentage of their wages toward the plan.
The contract calls for increased wages, averaging 3.5 percent a year; gains in health coverage for over 2,600 retirees who live outside the metropolitan area and are younger than 65; and refunding of a portion of pension contributions to about 20,000 workers made from 1994 to 2001.
On the downside, the contract would have all workers pay 1.5 percent of their wages toward their health insurance premiums.
We hope that the union members will realize what a good deal they have and that the majority of workers in the private sector pay a healthy portion of their incomes to cover their health insurance premiums too.
We say put the bitterness and grumbling aside; all negotiations wind up with both sides giving a little and getting a little. Increased health care costs, lost wages and strike-related fines notwithstanding, your union leaders negotiated a good deal for the vast majority of your membership.
We hope that you will continue your streak of not rejecting a contract since 1992. We encourage union members to vote, by phone or the Internet, to approve the contract and put the ball in the MTA’s court.