MTA is planning tiny pay hikes as budget gap looms
The cash-strapped MTA plans to help balance its books by skimping on raises for its workers next year, financial plans show.
Agency bean counters predict the MTA can save $40 million by limiting 2009 raises for the Transit Workers Union to less than 1.5%.
"Their position is ridiculous, and it won't happen," TWU Local 100 President Roger Toussaint told the Daily News.
The MTA and the TWU have been in contract talks as the January expiration date for the current contract nears.
That pact was reached after the union staged a three-day walkout in December 2005.
Another strike "is not in the cards," Toussaint said.
But, he insisted, neither is a 1.5% raise.
Bus and subway workers have been taking note of the string of multi-year contracts City Hall has reached with unions for police officers, firefighters, correction officers, sanitation workers and clerical staff. Each received annual raises of about 4%.
The MTA included a planned 1.5% raise in its preliminary 2009 budget that officials are now updating to include double-digit fare hikes and service cuts, citing a ballooning deficit.
MTA CEO Elliot Sander earlier this week said that the budget gap widened to $1.2 billion and "draconian" budget cuts and fare hikes were likely without a state bailout plan.
"I would say that they are using the economic situation of the last several months to blackmail us," said Toussaint, who represents about 35,000 bus and subway workers.
In closed-door contract talks, MTA negotiators haven't suggested a 1.5% pay hike, Toussaint said.
"I wouldn't be at the table with those numbers," he said.
Toussaint's comments are the harshest he's leveled against the current MTA administration.
Asked about the change in tone, Toussaint said: "This is the first time they are putting into the public space, and into the airwaves, this type of garbage."
