http://www.wnbc.com/traffic/5532275/detail.html
UPDATED: 3:38 pm EST December 22, 2005
NEW YORK – The city’s crippling three-day mass transit strike ended Thursday after union leaders – facing mounting fines, possible jail terms and the wrath of millions of commuters – voted to return their 33,000 members to work without a new contract start running, although transit officials said it would take 10 to 18 hours to restore full subway service. Union employees working the evening shifts were expected to report as soon as possible.
“We are on our way back, but we will not have full service immediately,” said NYC Transit President Lawrence Reuter. Regular bus service could begin before the subways are running, he added.
The annoucement of the vote came outside union headquarters about 3 hours after state mediators said a possible deal was worked out.
Roger Toussaint, the combative president of Transport Workers Union Local 100, had recommended that his union’s executive board accept the deal. But the vote was immediately blasted by dissidents who felt the union had caved in.
“This was a disgrace,” said TWU vice president John Mooney. “No detils were provided to the executive board. (Toussaint) wants us to discuss the details after Christmas.”
The proposed deal would put the nation’s largest mass transit system back in operation while negotiations on a new three-year deal resume between the TWU and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. But it does not resolve the contract dispute, raising the spectre of another walkout if negotiations were to fail.
Both sides returned to a midtown Manhattan hotel for serious discussions at about 1 a.m. Thursday and met through the night.
“This was a positive day,” said mediator Martin Scheinman. “It was a very positive night. We wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
The walkout, which began at 3 a.m. Tuesday, was the first citywide transit strike in 25 years; the workers left their jobs in violation of a state law prohibiting them from striking.
The walkout sent millions of commuters from the city and its suburbs scrambling to find alternate ways of getting to work, and inflicted a heavy toll on the city’s economy in the week before Christmas.
The upbeat mood at the announcement of the tentative deal was in stark contrast with the bitter rhetoric of the last two days, when Mayor Michael Bloomberg traded barbs with Toussaint. Gov. George Pataki, another strident critic of the union, hailed the possible deal as “very positive for all New Yorkers.”
Both Pataki and Bloomberg had urged the MTA to avoid further negotiations until the union was back on the job.
Striker Ralph Torres, a Manhattan bus driver, said word of a possible deal spread quickly though the rank and file. A return to work, in addition to restoring his paycheck, would halt the imposed fines for every union member of two days pay for every day on strike.
“I’m ready to work the rush hour this afternoon if they let me,” he said from the picket line on West 41st Street.
The breakthrough was announced just minutes before Toussaint and two of his top deputies were due in a Brooklyn courtroom to answer a criminal contempt charge for continuing the strike in defiance of a court order.
State Supreme Court Justice Theodore Jones postponed the hearing until 4 p.m. A day earlier, Jones said he would consider fining, or potentially jailing union leaders Thursday if transit workers remained off the job.
He has already fined the union $1 million per day while the strike lasts, although that penalty has been frozen while the TWU appeals.
The tentative deal came without the MTA pulling its pension proposal, which Toussaint had said one day earlier was a sticking point. Curreri said the MTA “has informed us it has not withdrawn its pension proposals but nevertheless is willing to discuss whether adequate savings can be found in the area of health costs.”
The union opposed a proposal raising contributions to the pension plan for new workers from 2 percent to 6 percent. Curreri said there would be a news blackout during further negotiations, as agreed to by both sides.
