Three Days Later, Right Back Where We Started

As transit employees returned to work — without a contract — it’s unclear what was gained by the strike:

We’re back on track — but, oh, what a train wreck this transit strike has been to the city. Three days of sore feet from slogging around town while the subways and buses sat idle, three days of a $1 billion gut-punch to the local economy – and New York doesn’t even have a contract with transit workers to show for all the agony.

. . .

As officials calculated New York lost $1 billion in business during the strike, Mayor Bloomberg called the ordeal “a very big test for our city.”

“And I think it’s safe to say we passed with flying colors,” he said.

But the strike, which erupted early Tuesday as New Yorkers were preparing for the Christmas and Chanukah holidays, ended without a settlement of the thorny issues that led the TWU to shut down the nation’s largest transit system.

And it saddled workers with huge fines — an average of $1,200 each — many can’t afford to pay.

“It seems like what we started with is what we are getting now,” said dissident TWU board member Marty Goodman, who voted against going back to work. “Members are going to ask themselves what it was all for.”

Listening to the Local 100 dissidents, you have to feel bad for transit workers, who bore the brunt of their leadership’s intransigence. They lost something like nine days of pay over the issue of increased pension contributions for future employees. It’s hard to see how they’re not getting screwed here.

In fact, the Daily News makes a great point in its editorial today:

Of all the players, Toussaint fell the farthest. Roll the clock back. It’s 3 a.m. Tuesday. Kalikow offers the TWU raises that totaled more than 11% over three years, plus a .5% bonus, plus a new paid holiday on Martin Luther King Day, plus continued fully paid health care coverage for life, plus a plan to address TWU grievances regarding worker discipline.

Facing deficits and skyrocketing pension costs, Kalikow also proposes requiring new workers to contribute 6% of their salaries to a retirement plan that lets them pack it in at half pay after 25 years at age 55.

And, in violation of the Taylor Law, Toussaint walks, calling that single absolutely reasonable negotiating term an insult.

Now, after the invaluable intercession of three state mediators led by Richard Curreri, Toussaint is coming back to the table, where he’ll have to make concessions. Curreri signaled yesterday that the talks will take into account the ability of the MTA (the straphangers) to pay. He also pointed to a tradeoff: The MTA relents on pensions, and the TWU agrees its members will begin contributing to health care.

From the perspective of the MTA’s budget this could make perfect sense, but Toussaint’s troops may well view such a compromise as cuckoo.

It would mean that people not yet on the payroll would escape contributing to their pensions while the people who went out on strike, at great personal cost, would have to kick in for health care. [Emph. added]

So it’s possible — quite possible — transit workers will get a worse deal in the end.

Has It Really Come Down To A Three-Day Weekend?

As the Times reported over the weekend, for semi-complex legal reasons, the issue of pensions may be off the table, and in fact the issue never came up at TWU President Roger Toussaint’s morning press conference announcing the partial strike already underway. Instead, the union seems to be focusing pay raises of six percent a year (down from eight percent) and . . . Martin Luther King, Jr. Day off.

That’s it? MLK, Jr. Day to avoid a strike? What’s complicated here?

They Sell . . . Air?

The price of unused air rights for buildings has reached a new high:

The price of air has gone up in Manhattan.

It’s now $430 a square foot.

Two New York City developers have agreed to pay a record-setting amount for “air rights” so they can build a 35-story apartment tower with views of Central Park from the high floors.

The brothers William L. and Arthur W. Zeckendorf are set to pay $430 per square foot — more than twice the going rate — for unused air rights over Christ Church and the Grolier Club at Park Avenue and East 60th Street. Christ Church will collect more than $30 million; Grolier will get about $7 million.

Air rights allow developers to build taller by buying the space over low-scale buildings and transferring it (on paper, if not in reality) to spaces over adjacent buildings. Although such transfers occur elsewhere in the country, the prices do not run as high as they do in Manhattan, which, after all, is an island and generally provides developers with one option: up.

The rights will be transferred to a site west of the Grolier Club on East 60th Street, where the Zeckendorfs and their partners own three tenements that are to be demolished.

If it all goes as planned, the developers will be able to build a taller tower than the zoning ordinarily allows.

Not only did Christ Church sell its air rights, but it apparently sold its address as well:

In a separate deal with Christ Church, the tower will also have a coveted Park Avenue address, despite its location on 60th Street.

All of which leads one to wonder just what else you can sell . . .

See also: Christ Church United Methodist.

About That “Nice Treat” . . . “Whom Does This Actually Benefit?”

About that “nice treat”, you do realize there is a big MTA bond issue coming up this November, don’t you? “Fare Cuts for Holidays Are Called Into Question”:

It may seem like a benevolent year-end gift, but fiscal analysts and watchdog groups from both ends of the political spectrum yesterday criticized as irresponsible the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s plan to give subway, bus and commuter-rail riders fare discounts during the holiday season.

The discounts, which would be unprecedented in scope and cost an estimated $50 million this year in lost revenue, may secure some sorely needed good will for the authority, which is urging voters to approve a $2.9 billion state transportation bond act on Election Day.

But the authority faces a grim fiscal situation in the near future, as rising debt payments threaten to devour its operating budget. The authority hopes to balance its books next year, but anticipates a net budget deficit of $128 million in 2007, rising to $880 million in 2009.

Liberal and conservative analysts alike questioned the prudence of the temporary discounts.

The Zagat version of this article would go something like:

The MTA, already under fire for its murky bookkeeping, appears to be engaged in “feel-good, short-term gimmicks” and a “a yo-yo fare policy” to “secure some sorely needed good will” as voters will be asked to approve its $2.9 billion state transportation bond act. “Merely a Christmas present,” an “empty election-year gift” to the Mayor or “a nice gesture” that they can afford? The question of “Whom does this actually benefit?” is on everyone’s minds.

< /zagatreading>

MTA Blue-Light Special

Instead of rolling back fares during the holiday season why doesn’t the MTA use their nearly $1 billion surplus to put off inevitable fare hikes? Well what’s this about? The Daily News explains:

Happy Holidays, New York – from the MTA.

The agency wants to use part of its huge expected surplus to hand out unprecedented holiday season discounts to riders – including $1 weekend fares on city buses and subways from Thanksgiving through December, the Daily News has learned.

The goodies, detailed in a memo sent yesterday by MTA Executive Director Katherine Lapp to Chairman Peter Kalikow, drew cheers from straphangers, who have been whacked with two fare hikes since 2003.

“This would definitely help me out,” said Adriana Kowaliw, 22, of Manhattan, a recent college graduate who works in banking. “It would be a nice treat for New Yorkers.”

A nice treat? A nice treat?! Can’t you think of other things that would be nicer treats? Like, say, no more weekend service disruptions? Or twenty feet of a Second Avenue line? Or what about a fully functional G train? Just asking!