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By Root 1035 0

” in his 1974 gubernatorial effort—and announced plans in May 1978 to complete the long-delayed project. Politicians, like the rest of us, have the right to change their minds. But citizens also have the right to question Koch’s sincerity when he vowed Westway would “never” be built. Besides, Koch’s reversal suggests he had learned precious little from past city mistakes. Once again, the city was leaping to embrace federal funds no matter what the purpose. Once again, city policy would reward a handful of speculators—the construction unions and the “David Rockefellers and a lot of real-estate interests who are going to make a lot of money,” Koch warned in the campaign. Once again, the city was pouring limited resources into roads, not mass transportation. And once again, a public figure acted as if a campaign commitment were not a contract with voters. Politicians usually enjoy boasting to each other that their word is their bond; they have fewer compunctions about misleading voters.

Perhaps nothing illustrates how little has changed in New York so much as the 1978 labor negotiations. Because labor costs are the principal component of the city’s budget, and because labor contracts impinge on the city’s ability to deliver services, a detour is instructive. Witnessing the negotiations, one would think there was no fiscal crisis. Union leaders and others agreed it would be “an outrage” for the city not to grant “substantial” raises, not to keep pace with raises granted elsewhere. To union leaders, the city’s ability to pay seemed as much an abstraction as Koch’s Westway pledge to voters. The first union to negotiate was the Transport Workers Union, whose contract expired on March 31, 1978. The union commenced the duel by demanding, among other things, a 20 to 25 percent pay hike, two additional paid holidays, free public transportation for the spouses of their 33,000 workers, the elimination of all “beakies” (undercover inspectors), the payment of all unused sick days at retirement, lunch money allowances to be increased from $3 to $5, the three-day death in family allowance increased to five days and extended to cover the death of grandparents.

The Transit Authority countered by calling for contract changes which it said would save $120 million over two years. These included: elimination of paid lunch periods and wash-up and check cashing time, no pay for the first day of sick leave, reduction in vacation allowances, “eight hours work for eight hours pay” (ending swing time, etc.), elimination of premium pay for snow work and two hours’ pay on Election Day, limiting pensions to 120 percent of the final year’s base pay, and purging the contract of the prohibition against hiring part-timers. Union leader Mathew Guinan thundered, “We’re not going to negotiate away things we achieved over the last forty years.”

Tradition. As always, the duel was perceived as a contest between labor and management, with the public unrepresented except through its officials, who placed a lid on all public discussion of issues and costs once the negotiations became serious. Samuel Pierce, Jr., chairman of the mediation panel and a law partner of the ubiquitous Theodore Kheel, didn’t sound like an impartial referee when he said, “I’m sure both sides realize it’s important to keep the fare as low as is humanly possible. But it’s a very difficult thing to do because you have 33,000 transit workers who have the problems of inflation thrust upon them and need to meet that problem through increased wages.” Pierce seemed to be dismissing the Transit Authority’s contention that raises should come out of increased productivity. As always, he implied that maintaining the fare was less important than providing raises. Like almost everyone else, Pierce ignored the study which found that over the three years of the fiscal crisis most transit workers kept pace with inflation.

The negotiations ended on April 1. The union captured a 6 percent pay raise over two years, plus a $250 bonus for each worker, plus a cost-of-living boost, making it a 9 to 10 percent