Res. No. 654 Title Resolution calling upon the Mayor of the City of New York to submit a detailed accounting to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of all costs and expenses incurred by the City in anticipation of a December 2002 transit shutdown and calling upon the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to make full payment of such costs and expenses to the City. Body By Council Members Liu, Addabbo, Barron, Brewer, Comrie, Fidler, Gennaro, Jackson, McMahon, Monserrate, Nelson, Reyna, Sanders and Weprin; also Council Member Seabrook Whereas, The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and Transport Workers Union Local 100 (TWU), the union representing approximately 34,000 transit workers operating New York City's buses and subways, reached agreement on a tentative work contract shortly after the expiration of the previous contract, thereby averting a potential citywide transit shutdown; and Whereas, Prior to reaching this settlement, which still must be ratified by the membership of the TWU, the possibility that the transit system would be shut down was very real; and Whereas, According to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the City of New York, in preparing a contingency plan that would have gone into effect had there been a transit shutdown, expended between $5 and $10 million; and Whereas, The TWU, in anticipation of the rigors, obstacles and complexities in reaching a new contract settlement, had asked the MTA to conduct early negotiations, beginning in the spring of 2002; and Whereas, The MTA declined to begin early negotiations, and did not even tender an initial contract offer until ten days before the expiration of the previous contract; and Whereas, The MTA's failure to engage the TWU in productive and responsible contract talks until immediately prior to the previous contract's expiration constituted bad faith on the part of the MTA and demonstrated the agency's disregard for the critical need to maintain uninterrupted provision of transit services that are so vital to the City and to the adverse economic impact to the City in being forced to prepare an exhaustive contingency plan in the event of a shutdown; now, therefore, be it Resolved that the Council of the City of New York calls upon the Mayor of the City of New York to submit a detailed accounting to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of all costs and expenses incurred by the City in anticipation of a December 2002 transit shutdown and calling upon the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to make full payment of such costs and expenses to the City. |1013| MBS-1-03-03 LS#1644