N.Y. Transit Workers Reject New Contract

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N.Y. Transit Workers Reject New Contract
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 20, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/20/nyregion/20cnd-transit.html

NEW YORK -- The city's 33,000 union transit workers,
one month to the day after they stranded 7 million riders
with a crippling three-day strike, voted Friday to reject
their new three-year contract.

The workers, by a seven-vote margin out of more than
22,000 votes cast, opted to reject Transport Workers Union
local president Roger Toussaint's call for ratification and follow
the lead of a dissident group urging rejection.
The voting ended at noon Friday.

Toussaint announced the surprising vote at a Manhattan
news conference.

The Dec. 20 strike, right in the middle of the holiday shopping
season, shut down the nation's largest mass transit system for
three days. It was the first union shutdown of the mass transit
system since an 11-day strike in 1980, and left New Yorkers
scrambling to find their way around the city.

But it was an illegal walkout, violating the state's Taylor Law
and putting the union's members at dire financial risk. TWU
Local 100 was already fined $3 million, while TWU workers
were hit with $35 million in fines -- two days pay for each
day on strike.

A Brooklyn judge has yet to determine exactly how much
of those fines the union and its employees will pay.
Toussaint could also face jail time over the walkout;
a hearing scheduled for Friday was postponed.

The agreement would have provided workers with raises
of 3 percent, 4 percent and 3.5 percent over the next three
years. But it would have required them for the first time to
contribute 1.5 percent of their salaries toward health
care premiums.

The MTA agreed to pull a proposal that would have raised
the retirement age for new hires from 55 or required new
employees to contribute more to their pensions.

The deal was worked out in a late-night session with
mediators after talks had broken down three hours after
a midnight deadline.