Transit Deal Is No Closer After 6 Days of Arbitration (NY Transit)

[Omaha Steve]

Full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/14/nyregion/14mta.html



Transit Deal Is No Closer After 6 Days of Arbitration

By SEWELL CHAN
Published: August 14, 2006

After six days of hearings, a state-appointed arbitration panel has come no closer to reaching an agreement between the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the transit workers’ union to end their bitter and protracted contract dispute, and a resolution to the dispute may not occur until a new governor takes office in January, said experts who have followed the negotiations.

The three-member arbitration panel began hearings on Aug. 4, but on Friday afternoon, the panel’s chairman, George A. Nicolau, announced that the hearings had been recessed until sometime this fall with no conclusion. “I have directed the parties to use this break in the hearings to reflect on their positions and discuss ways among themselves to narrow the disputed issues in this proceeding,” Mr. Nicolau said.


A transit worker picketed outside a Manhattan bus depot last December during a 60-hour strike.


The start of the arbitration proceeding had seemed to signify a small step forward in the struggle, which has lasted months, over a new contract for 34,000 subway and bus workers, members of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union.

The union went on strike from Dec. 20 to 22 — its first walkout since 1980 — before its leadership reached a tentative agreement with the authority. In January, the membership rejected that deal by a margin of 7 votes out of 22,461 votes cast.

[jiffy]

1. Do they strike every year???

[ovidsen]

2. No, they don't.

Before brief strike in December 2005, the last strike was in 1981.

OK?

[Earth_First]

3. Spitzer will sort things out,

"...the dispute may not occur until a new governor takes office in January..."