Last-minute offer 'blew up' negotiation talks, union official says
Michael Sullivan, general chairman of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, said negotiations with the MTA were moving along before a last-minute offer “blew up” the talks.
“It was bizarre,” Sullivan said. "We passed paper back and forth for 48 hours. It kinda felt like another more pass or two I thought we might’ve been there, and then it just stalled.”
Sullivan said the MTA’s 11th-hour offer involved “an enormous contribution” for new hires to their medical benefits — an “unacceptable” change of course.
Nick Peluso, national vice president for the Transportation Communications Union, said the MTA’s shift in approach “almost provoked” the negotiations to break down.
Peluso declined to say the specific increase in medical contributions within the MTA’s offer but said it was “significant.”
LIRR locomotive engineers' union chairman Gilman Lang said the two sides “were never close” on a deal.
In the final hour of negotiations, Lang said the MTA threw out an offer that was “more egregious” than the previous lump-sum offer the agency put on the table in the days leading up to the strike.
He said he hopes the rallies taking place across New York City and Long Island “awakens the riding public to the MTA’s lies and gimmicks.”
Joseph Ostapiuk covers the Town of Oyster Bay and the city of Glen Cove. He joined Newsday in 2023 after spending more than six years at the Staten Island Advance.
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