The union that called New York's crippling transit strike said today that if transit authorities take back a contentious proposal on pensions, that could resolve the strike.
"If the pension demands ... come off the table, that would go a long way to us resuming the negotiations and resolving the strike," Transport Workers Union Local 100 head Roger Toussaint said in a news conference, adding that he was in discussions with state mediators aiming to end the stalemate in talks.
Some 34,000 TWU workers walked off the job on Tuesday after talks with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority broke down over pension and health care costs, leaving some 7 million daily subway and bus passengers stranded.
In its final offer before talks collapsed, the MTA raised its wage offer and withdrew a proposal to raise the retirement age for new hires to 62 from 55. But it also presented a new proposal to make new hires contribute six percent of salary to pension funds, a demand that the union rejected out of hand.