What the MTA is Demanding

What the MTA is Demanding

The MTA’s contract “proposal” is a declaration of war on our jobs and living standards. Through attacks on just about every one of our contract’s provisions, it aims to force us to work harder for much less, with less sick time and vacation time, and increasing job insecurity.

Bosses typically demand more givebacks than they really plan to get to help sellout union leaders falsely claim victories when some of the givebacks aren’t accepted. They also often target some divisions of the union more than others so the union leaders can tell the least-hard hit to consider themselves lucky and vote for the deal. We have to beware of those tricks and remember the basic principle of union solidarity – “An Injury To One Is An Injury to All” – and prepare to unite against all of these givebacks. Here are the major details:

● A real-wage cut: A 4 year contract with 2% yearly raises which, because the cost of living is rising faster, would mean a cut in our real take-home pay. Plus, the MTA proposes a bunch of tricks to reduce that supposed “raise” even further, including no raise from January 1-May 15, 2019, no retroactive raises until 60 days past contract ratification, and delaying subsequent “raises” to days after that date.

● A massive hike in health insurance costs: The MTA proposes to double our health insurance contributions from 2% to 4% by the end of the contract! They propose to add a $150 co-pay for Emergency Room visits and require “prior authorization” for prescription drugs. They also talk of “consolidation” (read attacks) of post-Medicare retiree health insurance and vaguely refers to “Coinsurance levels" which usually means attempts the addition of costly deductibles.

● Cutting vacation time: the MTA proposes to extend the length of Vacation Week Accrual to force new hires to work 5 full years before they receive 3 weeks’ vacation, and 10 full years to reach 4 weeks’ vacation! This is a terrible attack on new hires’ quality of life, forcing them to wait 7 years longer the we currently have to before receiving 4 weeks’ vacation.

●  Attacks on sick pay: the MTA wants to make employees who are Injured on Duty go 7 days without pay until their Waiver and Election of paid leave balances kicks in! So they want to stop employees injured on the job from using their accrued leave time and be forced into immediate poverty so they can use that economic pain to drive them back to work while they are injured. That’s sick!

●  Sweeping attacks on overtime: they want to end overtime after 8 hours and only pay it after 40 hours worked per week. They want a Salary Cap in MTA Bus to block overtime payments. And they want to immediately suspend Other than Overtime (OTO) accrual everywhere until the entire workforce averages a 3-days-per-year drop in leave usage including AVAs/PLDs/OTO and sick time, with OTO only being restored if this drop is maintained year after year. Overall, the overtime changes the MTA wants will give management a huge incentive to manipulate work schedules to discipline and punish members, especially if they succeed in their demand for the creation of part-time positions.

●  The introduction of part-time positions throughout the system: they want to create part-time Bus Operator positions as well as introduce “reduced work schedules in Buses and RTO, to allow employees with family or other personal commitments to continue employment but at a lower number of hours per day/week.” If they are allowed to get away with introducing part-time positions, management will use them against the full-time workforce in countless ways to cut our pay and make us fear for our positions.

● Increased use of non-union labor: the MTA wants to expand their use of private contractors in place of CED and Stations Cleaners’ jobs, allowing heavy duty station cleaning at 160-180 stations to be outsourced. The contract “offer” signals a drive to speed-up work by using the job performance standard of non-union workers to set the “standard of cleanliness” and also implement “new means and methods” which “shall include but not be limited to equipment, PPE, chemicals and methods not currently used on the property” which we all know will mean pushing more unsafe work conditions on Cleaners.

● The effective elimination of the Station Agent title and the threat of layoffs: the MTA demands that “the union [agree] to remove any and all impediments to the redeployment of Station and revenue personnel impacted by the implementation of the [cashless fare collection system],” and suggests “exploring training opportunities … for requalification to alternate titles” for Station Agents, with no guarantee they will receive new jobs. Combined with their plan use more private contractors, this means a growing threat of layoffs against Stations division members.

●  Allowing Private Contractors to do their own flagging of train in work zones. This could mean the end of RTO Construction flagging jobs and be a massive invitation to speed up and unsafe work. Scandalously, our union’s leaders have been allowing the MTA to train private contractors to flag and seem ready to accept this attack.

●  A huge attack on the pick rights of employees injured on duty: If you are unable to work for 30 or more days due to injury on duty, are on workers compensation or another leave of absence by the time of your next job pick, the MTA wants you to lose your ability to pick a new job for that pick.

●  Attacks on our ability to use and accrue sick leave: they want to double the employee sick notification window to 2 hours, change sick leave time accrual to a monthly distribution of leave time instead of the current yearly one, eliminate the 70/30 sick leave program, and worsen the sick leave control rules to include documented sick instances (currently they can only count undocumented sick instances for sick control review.)