Inside the failed 11th-hour talks to avert an LIRR strike

As the strike clock ticked toward the midnight deadline at Metropolitan Transportation Authority headquarters on Friday night, the Long Island Rail Road workers’ unions and MTA management still couldn’t get past what had long vexed negotiators: how to handle pay raises during the contract’s fourth year.

Unions representing electricians, locomotive engineers, signal inspectors, machinists and ticket clerks, who are now on strike, had wanted raises of 5% in that fourth year. The MTA had upped its offer from 3%, closer to the union's position, with a portion paid in a lump sum.

But to increase the pay, management negotiators late Friday had a new proposal: Unions would have to agree that new hires contribute more than the current 2% of base pay toward their health insurance.

In exchange, according to an MTA source speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations, the workers would see their pay go up nearly 4.5%, a combination of a traditional pay raise and a lump-sum payment.

To the unions, it was an 11th-hour offer involving "an enormous contribution" for new hires to their medical benefits — an "unacceptable" change of course, Michael Sullivan, general chairman of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, in an interview at Penn Station on Saturday.

Read more on why 11th-hour talks between the sides "blew up."

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.com,joseph.ostapiuk@newsday.comchayesmatthew,

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.