Labor Relations 101
by Stuart H. Brody The enormous impact of the recent transit strike in New York City provoked heated reaction from political leaders, the press, and the transit riding public, mostly directed at the Union. A review of the basic principles of labor relations might, in retrospect, explain how the strike could have been prevented.

While a strike by public employees is prohibited, the right to strike was federally recognized in 1933 thanks to Robert Wagner Sr., a New York Senator and the father of a distinguished New York mayor of the same name.

Collective action by working people in furtherance of their goals, like any other civil right, is annoying to those inconvenienced by it. But to a society that endures because of its fidelity to those rights, their protection is paramount.

A transit strike is never taken lightly by New York transit unions. There have been three in the last half-century. By contrast, Paris transit workers strike more often, for less reason and with less concern for the general welfare. There have been three transit strikes in France in the last half year.

It would be a mistake to conclude that the Union undertook this action lightly, or with disrespect for the ridership it serves. Rather, it appears that its bargaining partner, the MTA, was disrespectful in its conduct.

Respect is established by give and take that inherently conveys understanding of the political and economic realities faced by the other side. It appears to me — an outsider, to these negotiations, but one with considerable experience in transit labor issues — that the MTA did not exercise such respect. Why?

An employer never, NEVER, introduces a major shift in bargaining philosophy at the last moment. No matter how elegant an 11th hour proposal may appear to the MTA, it pushes the Union off balance, forcing it to process months of negotiations through a wholly new bargaining framework. The MTA did just that, by a last minute frontal attack on the issue of pension security.

Compounding the error of making a 180 degree shift in strategy, the pension proposal offered by the MTA was inherently insulting. It would require all future hires to pay a 6% pension contribution while incumbent employees paid 2%. It is naive to expect a union to agree to such inherent benefit disparities within the collective. Two-tiered wage or benefit levels inevitably cause workplace cleavages. The MTA’s proposal, in artfully lodged, was, quite simply, a thinly disguised union busting tactic.

Another fundamental rule of labor relations — that the mayor who never sits at the table should never stray far from it — was apparently ignored here. The buck stops with the mayor. It is his responsibility, not the duty of unelected, anonymous and largely unaccountable MTA officials to keep talks “respectful.” The mayor could have provided a steadier eye on the MTA’s questionable bargaining approaches that resulted in this urban catastrophe. This is especially true because reports in recent years by State Comptroller of accounting improprieties inherently weakened the MTA’s credibility at the table and among the public.

A succinct prescription for the future? More respect for the collective aspirations of working people that democracy guarantees and more engagement by elected leaders upon which democracy depends.

Stuart H. Brody, was General Counsel to the Chicago Transit Workers in their strike of 1979, and later served as a director of Chicago’s Regional Transportation Authority (the equivalent of New York’s MTA) and now practices labor law in New York.