Back-Room And Smoke-Filled

Former Parks Commissioner Henry Stern says we should be concerned about this pension payout:

The great Toussaint victory came over an issue not previously mentioned in the press. When the Legislature reduced the retirement age for transit workers to 55, it required the beneficiaries of early retirement to contribute 3% of their salaries toward the new higher pensions. Years later, under pressure from the union, it reduced the contribution to 2%, and later abolished it entirely. However, Albany refused union demands to refund the percentage of their salaries that transit workers had paid in for their higher pensions. It is unusual for Albany to resist a union demand, normally the legislators are supine in the face of pressure from their regular contributors; in fact some consider it unethical to turn down a request from those at whose table they have supped.

Nonetheless, it was the MTA that agreed to the massive payout, as a condition of settling the illegal strike. And it was done in secret, behind closed doors, with the press excluded. The reason to bar the press is to prevent pandering by the participants, not to allow last-minute deals unknown to anyone but the parties. This is an extraordinary violation of the principle of open government. It is three men in a closed room, dispensing hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds. [Conservatives are pissed.]

And never mind selling out the “unborn” — the TWU now has 13,700 workers not eligible for the pension contribution refund who are getting screwed over here. (Are they the toddlers here? The adolescents?)