{"id":567,"date":"2005-12-27T10:07:33","date_gmt":"2005-12-27T18:07:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2005\/12\/principled_altruistic_and_totally_inexplicable.html"},"modified":"2005-12-27T10:07:33","modified_gmt":"2005-12-27T18:07:33","slug":"principled_altr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/12\/principled_altr.html","title":{"rendered":"Principled, Altruistic And Totally Inexplicable"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Daily News reports that the MTA and Transport Workers Union are close to signing a new contract, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/news\/local\/story\/378014p-321151c.html\">one that seems worse than what the transit workers would have gotten had they not gone on strike<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>Sources said the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Transport Workers Union Local 100 are close to a three-year pact that calls for raises of 3%, 4% and 4% for its 33,700 workers.<\/p>\n<p>The framework of the deal would require all workers to contribute toward health insurance, but would not change the existing pension plan or retirement age, sources said.<\/p>\n<p>While health care costs would rise, retirees would see improved health coverage, sources said.<\/p>\n<p>The local&#8217;s executive board has been told to report to its headquarters on West End Ave. today. It must approve any potential pact and call a ratification vote by members.<\/p>\n<p>That framework, if nailed down, allows both sides to address some of their main concerns.<\/p>\n<p>Union leader Roger Toussaint can say he held the line on pensions; he was vehemently opposed to raising the retirement age from 55 to 62, and fought raising pension contributions for new hires.<\/p>\n<p>MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow can point to the workers&#8217; first-ever contribution to health premiums. Transit officials have said pension and health care costs are soaring, and that without workers paying for some of their costs, fares could rise.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>By fighting off a pension contribution for new hires in exchange for higher contributions to health care premiums for current employees, the transit workers seem very principled, almost altruistic . . .<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not buying it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Daily News reports that the MTA and Transport Workers Union are close to signing a new contract, one that seems worse than what the transit workers would have gotten had they not gone on strike: Sources said the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Transport Workers Union Local 100 are close to a three-year pact that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture_infrastructure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}