Against concessions

John Samuelsen claims to win the best possible contract, do you believe that? What is your expectation can John Samuelsen really get a good contract? With his claim he will soon begin surveying the members on their contract priorities. Why even bother surveying the membership on this contract of 2012 when every member knows it is a foregone conclusion. Nothing less than the current 11.3% wage raise benchmark is acceptable.

The fact was painfully illustrated when Jay H Walder wanted to privatize the LI Bus due to Nassau county’s inability to contribute its portion to the operating budget of the LI Bus. He may claim that the economy downward spiral may not warrant offering an equal contract to the previous one and that we should be at the mercy of the budget axe swing. He may employ the media vilifying public employees who are members of the TWU Local 100. We expect his stance on the TWU Local 100 contract of 2012 to possibly be part of a negotiating tactic with the state, which is also slashing funding for the MTA. But when you look at the whole picture, a more sinister and disheartening motivation emerges. We are the same type of public employees you saw on the news each night holding out in Wisconsin against a governor doing everything in his power to break the unions by dismantling collective bargaining rights.

On the other hand one wonders how this survey is going to be conducted. Maybe it may never take place at all just like all the vapor that never materialized from John Samuelsen with his TBOU team. It may be a John Samuelsen ploy to build phony sentiments among the membership with this upcoming contract of 2012 by saying that this is ‘the best possible contract.’ Now the question is what is John Samuelsen’ best possible contract? Will it be equal to the contract of 2009-2012 that provided for wage increase of 11.3%? Maybe they will reward us with a new tier 5 in which the management will demand the new hires pay more for and get less from their pensions. In addition to shifting the cost of the pension from the management to the membership.

John Samuelsen may agree to wage freeze with zero percent raise - maybe that is ‘the best possible contract’. However that is from their view not from the membership’s view. How about increased medical co-pays for basic benefits? As long as John Samuelsen does not have to work a dirty job under sometimes petty and abusive supervisors then we should be grateful and consider that ‘the best possible contract.’  Then their trickery part was passing the robber baron solidarity fund - their explanation was vile in comparing it to taxes that a village, county, city or state passes. What John Samuelsen may not be aware of is that in the real world the legislative body passes the state tax laws, not the nonsense voting which did not end at the deadline. When they realized they did not have the number of votes to pass the robber baron solidarity fund they extended the voting for ten more hours. What followed in their explanation about the extension of the deadline was dishonorable. However we expect that in the event the contract is brought up for ratification that it will be rejected by a huge margin. This time around we will be ready with a ‘Vote No’ campaign.

In John Samuelsen’s best possible contract will there be a no-layoff clause? What are the odds? Will it include representation in the health benefit trust? Will it separate the merger of the two bus departments - TA Surface and the Manhattan and Bronx Transit Operating Authority (MaBSTOA)?

There are many questions to be raised but we do not expect John Samuelsen to provide answers but rather play his usual hand that we are the problem instead of looking at the man in the mirror. We predict John Samuelsen’s contract of 2012 will contain major givebacks.