Update on Outstanding Contracts
I want to give everyone an update as to where we are in negotiating the MSII, MaBSTOA, MTA Bus and Queens Contracts. The MSII contract expired in August and the other three contracts expired in December. We had one MSII meeting so far and have not had any on the MaBSTOA, MTA Bus and Queens Contracts because we are waiting for the ATU’s to settle their outstanding agreements and we’re in a heated fight right now over the cost saving that were generated from the last contract.
The cost savings generated from that contract, are extremely important as we need to clear up the debt we owe from the last contract when we deferred a two month contract extension. That two month contract extension was converted into an equivalent dollar amount, which you would be able to find in your last MOU under Additional Funding. If you recall we had an issue fitting into the Local 100 pattern because they negotiated some sort of savings in a separate elevator/escalator side agreement which we could not emulate so we faced the prospect of extending the contracts again or defer the issue to this round. We deferred and gave everyone a one time option to switch between medical providers NYSHIP and Aetna.
We’ve had some very preliminary discussions with the Authority on the outcome of that process, and what I can tell you is that, the numbers are not great and we have a long road ahead, as we need to not only square the debt from the last contract, we need to jump another new hurdle from the latest Local 100 contract when they eliminated traditional Medicare in favor of a wage increase, bonus and other benefits. And as you know we are not eliminating Medicare for Medicare Advantage.
We are not going to blow through this round of negotiations quickly and get screwed. We are going to take small measured steps analyzing every figure we are given, to be sure everything adds up. This is not going to easy and it’s not going to be quick, but we’ll get through it all and I will post updates along the way, but just know, we are in the early stages of this fight but we are working on the contracts.
Fraternally,
Philip Valenti
President
