A fair contract for Metro-North workers

Here we go again. Gov. Hochul talks a good game, claiming to be a pro-labor, pro-trade union governor during appearances at ribbon cuttings and other highly orchestrated press events. But similarly to former Mayor Bill de Blasio, the governor doesn’t come close to living up to her rhetoric.

She appears to be just as disingenuous, hollow, and hypocritical as that anti-blue collar fauxgressive who catered to the kale-chip, coldbrew-coffee, Brownstone-Brooklyn crowd, and has thankfully been retired from politics because voters have no interest in hiring him for any other position.

Hochul and her wholly owned Metropolitan Transportation Authority — yet again — are unnecessarily putting the screws to hundreds of Metro-North Railroad workers. They are trying to impose a litany of heavy-handed contract demands that would inflict serious economic damage on hardworking men and women, and their families, just like they attempted in our prior round of contract negotiations.

Her timing couldn’t be worse for Democrats.

The 2022 midterm elections in New York were an absolute disaster for Democrats. The party lost four congressional seats in the state, shifting the balance of power in Washington to the Republicans. Heading into the 2024 elections, it’s vitally important for Democrats to win blue-collar votes. The massive outpouring of trade-union support for Tom Suozzi played a large part in his recent victory in a Nassau/Queens district. His consistent pro-worker policies and philosophies engendered confidence — and unified support — from blue-collar workers.

The pathway to victory for the Democrats in New York, and everywhere for that matter, is a laser focus on economic security for working people. President Biden’s team knows this. They are ramping up efforts to raise public awareness about Biden’s legislative and policy achievements.

Listening to labor leaders, Biden and pro-labor members of Congress provided funding and mandates in the American Rescue Plan that protected scores of public sector employees, like transit workers, from being laid off.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provided $39 billion in new transit funding, the largest increase in federal transit funding ever. That funding is supporting many existing union jobs, and creating many new ones, so critical infrastructure can be built, repaired or expanded.

New York has the second-highest rate of union membership in the country. Slightly more than 20% of workers are represented by unions. There are approximately 1.7 million union men and women working in either the public or private sector in the state.

What has “Gov. Kathy de Blasio” done lately? She allowed her MTA to start contract negotiations in January with TWU Locals 2001 and 2055 with demands that aggressively attack workers’ pensions, health care, income, and job security. Hochul’s MTA wants to:

l Increase workers’ paycheck deductions for health care by 150%.

l Outsource to private contractors work now done in-house by union members.

l Reduce workers’ paid sick days and vacation time.

l Stop paying workers during their lunch breaks.

Good luck getting union votes with those moves from the right-wing playbook.

This isn’t the first time Hochul and her MTA tried to abuse the TWU’s members at Metro-North, who comprise about 600 mechanics, cleaners, and cabinet makers. During negotiations for the previous contract, one of the MTA’s first demands was for the right to open up the agreement, and reduce wages and benefits, at any time. That’s an incendiary and offensive ask that would enrage members of any union.

Ultimately, the MTA failed to win that and other insulting concessions. But workers went more than four years without a contract or a raise before the dispute was resolved. It was a bruising fight that workers won’t soon forget.

Governors like to distance themselves from the MTA by claiming it is an independent authority with its own board and chairman/CEO. That’s a crock. Hochul appointed Chairman Janno Lieber. A majority of the MTA’s voting board members are gubernatorial appointees.

And Hochul is regularly the subject of MTA-related headlines like: “MTA officials, Gov. Kathy Hochul tout benefits of congestion pricing,” “Hochul backs MTA bid to boost fines for repeat fare-beaters to up to $200,” and “Gov. Kathy Hochul, MTA address response to flooding that upended subway and train service.”

Hochul even traveled to Times Square last summer to stand with Lieber to announce the winner of a music contest open to musicians who perform in the subway.

The governor is about to make more headlines — about her treatment of Metro-North Railroad workers as negotiations unfold. Union members — in the TWU and many others — will be paying attention. From Buffalo to Bedford-Stuyvesant, they will remember what happens when they go to the polls in November.

Samuelsen is the international president of the Transport Workers Union.