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?)

And Pataki, Keep In Mind, Has Nothing To Lose

The current city tabloid cause célèbre — the TWU pension buyback, which union leadership cites as making the strike worth it — may be vetoed by the Governor, provided he has the balls to do so:

Gov. George E. Pataki’s office said last night that he was inclined to veto a key provision of the New York City transit contract settlement announced this week — one that gives 20,000 workers refunds of pension contributions — noting that he had vetoed a similar provision twice before.

The provision, which would require a change in state law, would give many workers refunds of payments they made to their pension plan between 1994 and 2001, when most workers contributed 5.3 percent of their earnings. In 2001, the contribution for most workers was reduced to 2 percent.

The provision, part of the settlement reached on Tuesday by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, delighted many transit workers, particularly those who joined the system in 1994 or earlier. It is expected to strengthen support for the contract among the union’s 33,700 members, who will vote on the deal by next month.

. . .

Aides said the governor was surprised and disappointed by the inclusion of the provision in the settlement.

The refund provision has drawn scrutiny on editorial pages. Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal argued that the authority “caved on pension reform”; The Daily News asserted that the union and its president, Roger Toussaint, “made out like bandits”; and The New York Post argued that the cost of the refunds was “far too high” and the provision “difficult to fathom.”

Mr. Pataki, a Republican, appointed the chairman of the authority, Peter S. Kalikow, and has considerable influence over it. Even so, it would be unusual for the governor to block a bill that the authority and its largest union had agreed to support.

Union leadership has, in the Post’s words, “gloated” that the buyback would more than pay for fines levied against individual workers. But that still doesn’t help 13,700 workers who didn’t contribute at the higher rate . . .

Piqued Post Pans Prodigious Payback Proscribed Picket Precipitated

There’s no mistaking the Post’s take on the new transit worker contract — “TWU’s Greedy Gloating”:

The Transport Workers Union was gloating yesterday that its damaging, illegal three-day strike resulted in a better contract for 34,000 subway and bus workers.

“Was the strike worth it? Yes,” read a large headline over a letter to union members from TWU head Roger Toussaint’s office.

“It’s about respect, and it’s about results.”

The letter continued, “We came back with more than was on the table before the strike . . . The 2005 transit strike was a big success. We went out strong. We came back stronger.”

Toussaint was particularly giddy about a hefty pension rebate that will be given to more than half the 34,000 members who made alleged “overpayments” toward their retirement from 1994 to 2000.

“We said we need pension justice. We got it,” Toussaint said on a Web site statement. He added that the refund will mean $8,000 to $14,000 for some 20,000 members.

Marvin Holland, a TWU executive board member who represents station agents, crowed, “The pension refund will be 10 times more than any fines we will get from the strike.”

Oy, Pass The Aspirin

By tomorrow night, a Brooklyn man will have visited 1,000 bars this year:

Raise a glass to Dan Freeman.

The 61-year-old Brooklyn barhopper is set tonight to mark the end of a quest to down at least one drink in 1,000 pubs in 2005.

Freeman’s boozy odyssey — which has led him to watering holes in three states, four countries and five boroughs — will wind down on the Bowery with a glass of champagne at bar No. 1,000, the Pioneer.

“It seems somehow appropriate to finish up on the Bowery,” said Freeman, who retired from his own consulting firm. “I’m sure that’s where many people thought I’d finish up anyway.”

His project is of course chronicled on a blog, 1000 Bars.

There’s More Righteous Daily News Outrage Where That Came From

The Daily News is keeping the fire of righteous indignation burning by pointing out that the MTA’s offer to buy back pension contributions in the new contract will amount to a huge windfall for some transit employees:

Thousands of bus and subway workers are poised to reap up to $14,000 each in a new contract pension windfall that will ease the pain of their strike penalties — but will cost commuters an estimated $110 million.

News of the surprise Metropolitan Transportation Authority payout to up to 20,000 union members follows last week’s crippling three-day strike, which cost the city an estimated $1 billion and wreaked pre-holiday chaos.

The $110 million represents a refund of extra pension contributions that up to 20,000 union members made between 1994 and 2000. The new transit contract will give workers back the 2.3% of wages they paid toward pensions for those six years — plus interest.

“It’ll probably balance out, but it’s actually our money,” said bus driver Alfred Kwiatkowski, 50, of the lower East Side.

The MTA and Transport Workers Union Local 100 President Roger Toussaint wouldn’t comment yesterday, but some workers said the deal made last week’s strike worthwhile.

“Roger finally got us our money back,” crowed bus driver Ray Rios, 48, of Corona, Queens, a 17-year veteran who has clamored for a refund since 2000. “We’ve been wanting our money back ever since.”

Thousands of MTA workers like Rios paid 2.3% extra into the pension fund for six years so they could retire at 55 instead of 62. But when the Legislature lowered the retirement age for all MTA workers to 55 in 2000, their extra contributions were for naught.

Gov. Pataki twice vetoed bills that would have returned the money to workers like Rios, saying it was a matter for the bargaining table. So that’s what the MTA did — agreeing to the one-time payment.

And just so everyone knows, the Daily News editorial board is pissed about this:

Roger Toussaint and the Transport Workers Union made out like bandits after all by crippling New York in their lawless strike. Those many promises by top officials that a walkout would gain the workers nothing have gone up in a $110 million puff of smoke.

. . .

The surprise pension sweetener has a history that dates to 1994. That year, then-Gov. Mario Cuomo signed legislation letting transit workers retire after 25 years, rather than 30, if they contributed an extra 2.3% of their salary to the pension system. Many did. Then, in 2000, the Legislature and Gov. Pataki enacted a bill that permitted all transit workers to pack it in after 25 years at age 55.

The union argued that everyone who had been paying for the benefit should get their money back. Pataki and the Legislature rejected the request, as well they should have. The TWU tried twice more to get Albany to approve reimbursing the workers and was unsuccessful both times. Now, after devastating New York, it has won.

(A payback doesn’t actually seem like such an unfair thing, but it’s obviously important for the Daily News to keep piling on . . .)