Metro

Play fare, TWU

Here’s a nasty lump of coal for the MTA’s largest union.

The transit agency’s “significant financial problems” mean it’s not obligated to fork over raises to its unionized employees, an arbitration panel found in a landmark ruling.

That decision, involving part of a dispute between the MTA and a 700-member segment of Transport Workers Union Local 252 on Long Island, goes against previous rulings.

The MTA will be able to use it as ammunition in its contract talks with its main union, the 35,000-member TWU Local 100, whose pact expires Jan. 15.

The last time there was a major contract dispute, during Christmas 2005, the transit workers struck and crippled the city.

In the Long Island case, the MTA successfully argued that the TWU must “shoulder some of the burden” that the riding public and the transit agency both have endured amid the bad economy.

Those burdens include higher fares and service cuts for riders and three years of no raises for MTA management, according to the ruling.

“To survive, it [the MTA] must eliminate nearly $4 billion in expenses from a $12 billion operating budget by 2015,” the panel noted in summing up the MTA’s predicament.

“It can do so only by controlling labor costs, which comprise two-thirds of its budget.”

The ruling covers only TWU Local 252, whose members work for the soon-to-be-defunct Long Island Bus and have been operating without a contract since 2009.

TWU Local 100 has repeatedly said it will not accept a contract that doesn’t give its workers raises, even though several state employee unions have agreed to work without pay hikes.

The latest ruling changes nothing, said TWU Local 100 President John Samuelsen.

“We’re intent on a wage increase,” he said.

Even though MTA bosses haven’t had raises, he said his members deserve more cash because they typically make less.

The bosses are “making $200,000 [a year],” he said. “Taking a zero [pay raise] is no big deal to them.”

jennifer.fermino@nypost.com