A Manhattan Supreme Court Justice on December 11 upheld provisions of the Local 100 contract decided by an arbitration panel earlier this year. The MTA, pleading poverty, said the panel had made legal and factual errors.

Justice Peter Sherwood ruled that the arbiters had logical reasons for their decision, most notably that the Local 100 terms are similar to those the city granted other municipal workers. The TWU members are due 11.3% in raises over three years. Police officers, firefighters, sanitation workers and other city employees received annual 4% raises in those contracts, some of which extend into 2012. “In the current economic environment, the award ….is a rich package, but it is not unique,” Sherwood wrote.

Current Local 100 President and TWU International VP Roger Toussaint, who did not run for another term as Local 100 President, issued the following statement:

Statement by Roger Toussaint

The court has upheld our arbitration awards and rejected the MTA’s petition to vacate them. This takes us an important step closer to Local 100 members getting what is rightfully ours.

The MTA went to court to hold up the award in order to punish transit workers and also because elements at the MTA and outside the MTA - notably, the Mayor and certain tabloids - were genuinely upset with the terms.

One term that upset those elements was the 11.3% wage settlement. This settlement is in line with what other public sector employees got in the previous year, but these elements did not want transit workers to get the same terms as other public employees.

Especially upsetting for them was the cap on the health benefits contribution at 1.5% on 40 hours pay. This change is worth nearly an additional 1% in wages. The panel carefully weighed the dollar value of this change, but for these elements this change hurt far more than its dollar value.

Making this change was a priority of ours in the negotiations and in arbitration. Coming out of the strike, we said this was fixable and we are delivering on that. This change is significant in itself and opens up a pathway to further address and resolve this issue in coming years.

The Court has found that the award was made with a solid legal footing, amply complying with the law. The MTA should do the right thing and honor the award now. Anything else would just be stalling out of sheer meanness.

The MTA has been given a small window to avoid continuing on its perilous course. The rule of law must be applied to them as it was applied to transit workers.
Transit workers have won an important victory in having our right to a solid contract award confirmed. We should continue to take all appropriate measures to safeguard this.