LIRR Union Negotiations/Newsday Editorial

Doc before a flame war starts , lets cut political finger pointing, this is NOT the place for it.

I think it should be okay to discuss historical evidence, IE voting records and legislative records - those are factual events, not political opinion.

No flame war here Dutch, YOU were the one who made the snide remark about a Bridge for sale. I dont make snide remarks to you. I was there for every LIRR strike except the one in 1960. I think I have a little more insight into LIRR strikes, then you do having been there for them. Also Please remember what the old timers who came before you gave up to get the benefits you now enjoy. Show a little respect for those who went without pay to get you what you now have. I walked a lot of Picket Lines.. how many have you walked?
Strikes at the Long Island Rail Road: July 10, 1960 to Aug. 5, 1960: 26 days Nov. 30, 1972 to Jan. 18, 1973: 50 days Dec. 8, 1979 to Dec. 15, 1979: 8 days April 1, 1980 to April 2, 1980: 2 days Jan. 18, 1987 to Jan. 29, 1987: 10 days (Source: Long Island Rail Road) There was also a two day strike in 1994, and the BLE job action as mentioned in other posts.
Again I could Be wrong, but I dont recall republicans ever introducing legislation to force us back to work. Just stating the facts.
Good luck with this one. Between Obama, Chuck Schummer, and Cuomo, I seriously doubt there will be one. Lets see how it plays out.

Actually, Doctor Guap is correct.

What you may be referring to is the two 120 day cooling off periods all commuter railroads face under the Railway Labor Act. That was instigated by the "Pothole" Senator (and he is a Republican) at the time to exhaust mediation on both sides and make the best and final offers at the last possible minute, the theory being why affront the Valued Customers (VC) on short notice.

The only stopage missing is the "Whiskey Rebellion" of 1966 or 1967, which stopped the evening commute completely.

BTW: Once you are released after 240 days and strike, you are usually not ordred back to work unless the President of the United States decrees it.

Whiskey rebellion is a great story. Seems a Conductor, or Conductors were taken out of service for having a drink while on duty.
So Harold Pryor the general chairman of the utu at the time, decided to invite several of the railroads management out for a drink. After they drank, he ordered all his Conductors and Trainman off the job, because management was drinking on the job. Shut down the evening rush hour. From what I was told, the charges were dropped against the Conductors.

There is an article posted up at work put out by Railway Age recently talking about MTA labor talks.

And so it is that protracted contract talks on wages, benefits and work rules affecting those commuter railroads have failed to produce a single new ratified agreement—hardly what New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, expected after exacting from the state’s public employee unions a concessionary five-year contract with an initial three-year wage freeze, and just a 4% wage increase over the final two.

The cudgel used by Cuomo on state employee unions was the threat of massive furloughs; but the MTA cannot mimic such intimidation. Furloughing operating crews, for example, would immediately cause the quantity, quality and safety of commuter rail—operated over lengthy geography without direct supervision—to deteriorate hurriedly.

Still, the MTA is feeling formidable pressure from the state capital in Albany. Cuomo, presiding over a $1.3 billion state budget deficit, says, “There is no piggybank in Albany anymore” for state agencies. Yet the unions observe that the MTA recently acknowledged a $1.9 billion budget surplus, helped along by a 9% increase in state subsidies.

Dampening the objective of extending the state-employee wage freeze pattern to unionized MTA rail workers is a 2012 five-year Amtrak settlement boosting unionized worker wages by 15%, and with only modest increases in healthcare insurance cost-sharing. While Amtrak is not part of the MTA—and surely more cash-strapped—union negotiators frequently seek patterns (sometimes called “comparability”) favorable to their members. Similarly, the MTA is seeking comparability with state employee contracts. Not lost on the MTA is that Amtrak settlements historically mirror those on privately held and highly profitable freight railroads.

http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/blo ... l?channel=

It's an interesting read, found it rather neutral. Cuomo has his work cut out for him for the year 2014.

The 1995 sickout was quite a big price to pay for BLE Div. 269

In addition to paying hefty fines across the board, all of the leadership had liens placed on their houses. One of their committeemen could not even retire and move due to the lien placed on his house by the carrier.

Even the scent of a job action has the carrier running to court.

Some of "4 behind 2's" statement is a little inaccurate. The hefty fines you refer to were a 2-day penalty for the day of the strike and the court costs to defend the Division in court. The BLE spread the costs over the entire membership and it cost each member about $550-$600. There was a $2,000,000 judgement that would only be levied IF there was another illegal strike before 2000. That was the lien that was mentioned. It wasn't paid because we didn't have another illegal strike before 2000.

We were forced to have that strike. The Railroad wouldn't talk to us and we had needs that were specific to Engineers and nobody else on the RR, which was Certification pay. The other unions settled and the Railroad insisted we take what they got and that's it. If we took the pattern agreement we also would have paid a disproportionate share of the cost of the Empire Plan.

The Certification pay amounts to about $2,700 per year. I paid a one time assessment of around $600 to receive $2,700 per year, every year. On top of that, the RR used to contribute the equivelant of 7% of an Engineers salary to our welfare fund. 3% of that amount was earmarked for our Liberty Mutual medical plan. The new Engineer negotiated agreement changed the contribution to 6% and we took the Empire Plan, which is totally paid for by the carrier. Our welfare fund actually gained money in that deal.

That sick-out was probably one of the top 5 most successful strikes on the LIRR by a union and I would do it again.

If $600 is a small price to pay for you, then God Bless.

The liens against the Committeemen's homes placed stress on them, including the individual mentioned.

> BART just settled an agreement after their 3 day strike and it seemed they didn't do too bad. In all nobody wants to see a strike, even the workers. If an agreement can be made before then, believe me everyone will be happier.

The BART agreement is a four year contract with three years at 3.72 percent and the fourth year at 4.22 percent making a total of 15.38 percent
This is actually a "gross" number, since each year a percent goes toward pension. So the net over 4 years is 11.38 percent.
The argument is, since pension contributions are pre-tax dollars, then a .72 percent raise offsets a 1 percent contribution.

This comes after three years of zeroes, then a 1%, making the net average 1.55 percent per year. It took a lot of fighting to get the raises,
the initial offer was four more years of zeroes. This was not a straightforward negotiation (like going in to a dealer and dickering over the price of a new car).

It was a vicious media circus, with hatred from the print, radio and TV media. One example was the news reporting that a train operator makes 70k a year.
However, train operators have a wage progression that starts at 55% pay and takes four or more years to make the top scale (63k). But averaging the lean years makes 53k a year a more realistic number over a multi-year time span.

The management was attempting to train managers to drive trains. The objective was to run limited service across San Francisco Bay, with a handful of operators. However, with minimal training, a rookie managed to kill two people. That hastened the negotiations and got an agreement. The two biggest unions (ATU and SEIU) accepted the new contract 4:1.

Here's the latest wrinkle:
Management paid $400,000 for a lawyer to negotiate, and he (supposedly) forgot to check for a family leave clause. So, the 9 board members (BART is a district made up of three counties and nine sub-districts, each electing one member) may not approve the contract. This is the latest wrinkle of a long, 8 month, drawn out negotiation scenario.

San Francisco has the highest rents in the country, but house prices are comparable to New York metro area. Base wages (at top scale) are roughly comparable to other transit systems.

That's why its called a tentative contract, since both union members and the BART board members still have to vote on it, either side could turn it down.

Just heard on the radio this A.M. that the BART deal hit a snag. There was some something about medical leave or family medical leave that the company said was put in the contract by mistake. Union said it had always been in there. As I was caffein deprived I wasn't really paying attention.

Rob

And being caffein deprived (still) I hadn't read all of Modorny's post. d'oh.

> That's why its called a tentative contract

True. The unions have voted on it. While management said "we like it", their official vote has not taken place yet.

"The BART board of directors is scheduled to go over the details of the tentative agreement at a closed session meeting Friday and to vote on the contract on Nov. 21."

The issue at stake is family leave. Up to now, BART grants family leave, but you have to use up sick and vacation days.

from a news article:
" Using conservative numbers, let's assume the average union member gets $100,000 in pay and benefits a year. Six weeks of family leave would cost BART $11,500 per employee. Multiply that by more than 2,500 union members the total potential cost is about $29 million. So BART's expected $67 million contract would climb to almost $100 million. That is way more than BART ever envisioned paying."

Realistically, the average pay plus benefits is more like 85k. Some benefits (like pension) are fully accrued in ten months (our pension system was originally designed for teachers). So, if you miss two months, you still have the remaining ten months. It is highly doubtful all 2500 employees would take family leave. More like 1 or 2 percent. At max - half a million. (or about what Thomas Hock got paid.)

Anyone think that the recent announcement to reduce the next fare increase to 4% from 7.5% has nothing to do with the upcoming negotiations?

Commuter X wrote:Anyone think that the recent announcement to reduce the next fare increase to 4% from 7.5% has nothing to do with the upcoming negotiations?

Other than showing the union's "we ain't gonna have any more money to give you," no.