Laid-off subway employees turn in badges, uniforms

Roughly 200 subway employees spent their last day at work on Friday turning in their badges and uniforms as the cash-strapped Metropolitan Transit Authority took steps to close a $900 million budget gap and balance its budget by next year.

The MTA, which includes Long Island Rail Road and Long Island Bus, has laid off nearly 3,500 employees this year.

Friday's reduction means the city is closing 40 subway station booths in Manhattan, the Bronx and Brooklyn, and reducing staff at 11 others in Manhattan. The savings in salaries, benefits and pension costs approved by the MTA board was projected to be $34 million for the remainder of 2010 and $52 million next year, MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz said.

He said that number was reduced by about $3 million dollars after a judge prevented the MTA from closing booths and firing workers, ruling the transit authority needed to hold a new round of public hearings which took place last month.

"The MTA has had to make a series of difficult decisions to address a $900 million budget shortfall caused by deteriorating tax revenues and State budget cuts, including laying off employees at all levels of our organization," Ortiz said in a statement. "We made an offer to the TWU that would have averted scheduled layoffs of station agents and reduced our long-term costs, but the offer was rejected."

TWU Local 100, the union that represents city transit employees, viewed the loss differently.

"These were layoffs of choice and retaliation because we refused to open our contract and accede to the MTA's blackmail demands for deep concessions," president John Samuelsen said.

The MTA's offer to the union to retain the workers included reduced wages, restructuring of their pension plans and longer wage progressions for newly hired workers.

Union spokesman Jim Gannon said the proposal only came with a "vague promise" to avert layoffs for now, but no guarantee down the road.

"They were looking for things that we just couldn't possibly give them," he said. "For us it was a non-starter."