Looks like the MTA’s contract negotiations with its largest workers union isn’t going so well.
John Samuelsen, the president of the Transport Workers Union, told a cheering crowd of his members that Gov. Cuomo and the transit agency can take their contract demands calling for no raises and “shove it.”
Speaking today at a rally in front of the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers – where union bigs and MTA officials were trying to hammer out a deal – Samuelsen said “I’m going to go back into that hotel, and I’m going to tell the chairman of the MTA, and I’m going to tell the governor to take their petty demands and shove it because TWU Local 100 is not going to agree.”
Samuelsen called MTA demands for part-time bus operators, a reduction of vacation days, and a reworking of overtime rules “ridiculous.”
The MTA is also demanding the union agree to three years of net zero wage increases, which Gov Cuomo managed to secure from other public employees unions.
Samuelsen said the TWU won’t agree to a contract that doesn’t guarantee raises.
“I said it before and I’ll say it again: we’re not eating the three zeroes that Governor Cuomo thinks that we should eat,” he said.
“We’re not selling out our operators, our conductors –we’re not selling them down the river so that Governor Cuomo or the MTA can assist in balancing the budget on the backs of Local 100 members. We’re not going for it.”
The TWU famously went on strike in 2005, crippling the city weeks before Christmas.
Their contract governing over 35,000 MTA employees expires at midnight tonight.
Both sides have said they will continue with their talks even after the deadline.
It could be a while.
“We’ll fight for a month, we’ll fight for two months, we’ll fight them until they relent and give us a fair contract,” Samuelsen told the cheering crowd of workers.