More Rumbling Over Transit Workers' Contract

On Monday, an arbitrator ruled transit workers could receive "four percent raises in each of the first two years of their contract; three percent in the third year -- far more than the MTA had budgeted for," according to NY1. Additionally, the MTA lost its bid to reduce the number of train operators aboard subway to just one (from two)—the Post says the Transit Workers Union "demanded a slew of outrageous perks to strong-arm the MTA into killing a plan that would have saved the cash-strapped agency $12 million," asking that if there was just a single operator, then the "lone operators get $2-an-hour pay hikes and that the conductors whose positions were eliminated simply get shifted to other lines," so the MTA decided not to pursue the single operator negotiation. TWU president Roger Toussaint denied that he made demands, instead saying, "This is plainly not true, and they know it. This was an exercise of incompetence at the highest level by [MTA director of labor relations] Ben Fernandez and [interim MTA CEO] Helena Williams, which they are now trying to cover up." And the Post's editorial board seems to agree, wondering if the MTA had planned this all along.