11 In the first year of the State’s program, more than 128,000 or approximately 1.6 percent of the more than 8 million covered workers used the program. The MTA also will opt into the New York State Paid Family Medical Leave Program, which currently provides eligible employees with 10 weeks of leave and will provide 12 weeks in 2021.9 TWU Local 100 members are now entitled to use the entire MTA network for free. 8 Express bus passes cost $62 weekly, meaning the value of such a pass for the 52 weeks in a year is $3,224. Transportation benefits were extended to entitle employees to commuter passes for express buses.The line of death duty benefit grew from $250,000 to $500,000 and the active service member death benefit grew from $25,000 to $50,000.The employer contribution toward enhanced optical and dental benefits increased by $4 per month, which will cost approximately $1.8 million annually.5 (CBC is unable to estimate the financial impact of this change.) The hourly premium for operating an articulated bus grew from $1 to $2.MTA Bus employees will receive the bonus for the first time, with a combined estimated annual cost of $1.6 million. The annual bonus for maintainers increased from $500 to $650 for New York City Transit and Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority employees.CBC estimates the four-year costs of these benefits to be at least $64 million, bringing the total four-year agreement cost to $1.1 billion. The Citizens Budget Commission (CBC) estimates these benefits add at least 0.5 percent to the 9.8 percent in annual wage increases, for a total cost of 10.3 percent. The contract includes other increases to pay and benefits, whose total costs were not included in the MTA’s reporting. 2 (See Table 1.) The MTA’s financial plan assumed 2 percent annual increases and set aside for $907.7 million for TWU wage increases in the November 2020-2023 Financial Plan, which projected a cumulative shortfall of $638 million. The annual costs of the wage increases will grow from $42.0 million in 2019 to $354.3 million in 2023, for a total of more than $1 billion through 2023. The contract provides for wage increases of 2 percent on May 16, 2019, 2.25 percent on May 16, 2020, 2.5 percent on May 16, 2021, and 2.75 percent on May 16, 2022, for a compounded total of 9.8 percent. In sum, the contract will increase the MTA’s four-year fiscal shortfall by $16.5 million however, the shortfall will be greater if savings fail to materialize. The TWU contract includes four major components: (1) increases to base wages (2) increases to other pay and benefits (3) changes intended to generate savings from increased employee availability and health insurance and (4) a commitment to work on improving productivity (the contract did not include any workrule changes). In addition, the labor-management productivity committees established in the TWU contract should establish productivity targets and provide public quarterly reports on savings to ensure accountability. To keep the financial plan impact neutral, the agreements should include greater savings, including workrule changes, to offset the impact of these increased costs. If the MTA negotiates similar agreements (and savings) with its other bargaining units, it will cost $11.7 million more than budgeted in the financial plan. Some of these costs will be offset by savings in health benefits and employee availability however, the net costs of the agreement will add $16.5 million to the MTA’s four-year budget gaps. In addition, the agreement’s non-wage benefits will cost at least $64 million over four years. 1 The compounded 9.8 percent wage increases will cost more than $1 billion through 2023, $129 million more than included in the MTA’s November 2020-2023 Financial Plan. The contract, which covers to and more than 37,000 employees, increases compensation and includes savings initiatives. New York, New York area prices were up 1.In January 2020 members of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA’s) largest collective bargaining unit, Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100, ratified a new labor contract. About New York, New York The City of New York, usually called either New York City (NYC) or simply New York (NY), is the most populous city in the United States.
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