If you are a OA/TA Supervisor with five (5) years or a MTA Bus Supervisor with ten (10) years in title in 2018, the Annual Open Enrollment period for you to change your medical and dental plans is November 1st through December 31st.   During that period you can make changes to your plans through the self-service employee portal.  If you happy with your current plans you don’t have to do anything.

OA/TA Supervisors who have completed five (5) years or MTA Bus Supervisor with ten (10) years in title in 2018, the Authority will schedule a benefits orientation for you to assist you in transitioning to the NYSHIP plan.  Contact your Division Chair for more information on the orientation schedule.   

As you may be aware, the TSO and the SSSA have been negotiating enhancements to our current dental and vision plans.  We concluded these negotiations earlier this year and due to delays in the procurement process these plans will not go into effect until the first quarter of 2019.  The new plans will offer significant improvement over our current plans and will include dependent coverage until age 26 regardless of the child’s student status.  If you have any questions call the Union Office for more information.

*** Arbitration Update ***

This is to inform everyone that on Friday, November 9th the record was officially CLOSED.

We expect a decision by early to mid December.  As soon as the decision is issued we will have it available to the members.  We will also have a MTA Bus Division meeting to discuss the award.

Happy Thanksgiving to all our members!

I would like to thank everyone who attended the meetings yesterday.

We hope that the meetings help clear up any confusion that you may have had regarding the Interest Arbitration.   If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me or your Unit Chair.

We will post and disseminate additional information as it becomes available.

Fraternally,

Vincent Modafferi

As of today, the arbitrator has still given us NO indication as to when an award will be issued.

We are disappointed but not entirely surprised at the delay.  This has been a very unique and complicated arbitration, especially the pension issues.  For better or worse, we are pretty sure the arbitrator will be looking at the Local 100 and recent ATU 1179 & 1181 pension settlements for direction and guidance on this issue in our award.

Hearings and witness testimony were completed yesterday.

 The Union presented witness testimony and exhibits that clearly demonstrated our argument and case that the MTA Bus supervisors are doing the same job, working for the same employer, and in many cases the same locations as the OA and TA supervisors, but are being paid less.

We also presented testimony and exhibits demonstrating to the panel that to achieve a comparable wage replacement rate (pension) for the supervisors, as provided for in the MTA Bus Local 100 pension award, the multiplier would have to be significantly higher than the $130 awarded to the hourly employees.

The Company did not have any questions for or cross examined any of our witnesses, nor did they dispute our claim that the MTA Bus supervisors are performing the same duties as the OA & TA supervisors.   Their case is based solely on the principle of pattern bargaining and how it has been historically applied to all the Unions under the MTA umbrella.  They also argued that the pension improvements in the Edelman Award were paid for by Local 100.

At the conclusion of the hearing, Arbitrator Wittenberg decided to leave the “record open” for thirty days to give both sides the opportunity to review the testimony and exhibits.  Closing briefs are due on June 8, 2018, at which time we will ask the Arbitrator the issue a decision as soon as possible.

As I have said along, we face an uphill battle attempting to overcome the pattern bargaining argument.  However, we believe the situation in MTA Bus is so unique and beyond any sense of fairness that if any case is going to “break” the pattern it would be this case at this time.  We remain optimistic that we will be able to make progress towards closing the gap on the pay inequities between MTA Bus and the OA/TA.