MTA MECHANICS VOTE TODAY ON 'LAST, BEST' OFFER STRIKING MTA MECHANICS VOTE ON AGENCY OFFER TODAY.

Byline: Lisa Mascaro Staff Writer

The MTA's striking mechanics will vote today whether to prolong their strike into a second month largely over trying to preserve a lifetime health care benefit that is virtually unheard of in the transit industry.

Under the current contract, Metropolitan Transportation Authority mechanics get free health care for themselves, with a premium of $6 a month for their families until age 65, whether active or retired. Those over 65 pay $21 a month for supplemental Medicare coverage.

The MTA's ``last, best and final offer'' being voted on today by the 2,100 mechanics in the Amalgamated Transit Union would mean higher premiums for mechanics and their families as well as retirees.

But it also could bring an end to the strike that began Oct. 14, a stoppage that stranded 400,000 riders - many of them poor and disabled.

ATU President Neil Silver has urged a no vote, vowing to keep the benefits the union has won from the MTA.

``These are the very gut-wrenching issues. These are the core issues of any union, and we're not about to give it up,'' Silver said.

The ATU's benefits package is richer than those extended to employees of other public and private transit agencies in the region.

While the San Diego Transit Corp. pays for health insurance for its mechanics and maintenance employees and their families, retirees pay $150 a month if they're over 65 and $460 a month if they're under 65.

First Transit Inc., which operates bus lines for the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, Foothill Transit in the San Gabriel Valley and a handful of MTA contract lines, offers no free health care for active or retired workers, said the company's vice president for human resources.

``That's a very good deal that's going on there,'' First Transit's Bob Lindsey said of the ATU contract. ``We have to do business a little differently.''

The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation warned of such retiree health cutbacks last year when it issued reports saying more and more companies are having retirees pay more and more of the premium costs.

``As the costs of health care continue to rise, employers are struggling for ways to cut costs. Retiree health care is certainly one avenue they look to,'' said Kaiser policy analyst Michelle Kitchman.

The Transportation-Communications International Union, another MTA union that has honored the mechanics' picket line, says the debate between the MTA and the ATU is over the retirees.

``That's what they're arguing about - people aren't dying soon enough,'' said the TCU's Raymond Huffer, whose workers don't have the kind of retiree coverage ATU gets.

The MTA pays $1.4 million a month into a union-managed fund that buys health insurance for its members. Early in contract negotiations, the MTA proposed taking over administration of the fund after an audit found that it was inefficient and poorly managed, but the agency has since dropped that demand.

Still, MTA officials say that in tight budget times they'd have to cut services and raise fares if they were to pay more into the fund beyond the 44 percent increases offered to continue the long-standing practice of footing the bill for employees' benefits.

Instead, they say, mechanics could end up paying about $70 monthly - a figure based on improved management of the health care fund - although the union estimates that the offer could result in as much as $200 a month in out-of-pocket costs for its members.

The union says retirees older than 65 would have to start paying as much as $360 monthly for the lifetime benefits the ATU has been providing to them at just $21 a month.

The MTA says the union-provided supplement is too extensive and expensive, and it has proposed lesser contributions that wouldn't provide as much care.

Further, the MTA insists that retirees older than 65 were never promised low-cost lifetime benefits, but Silver insists that the MTA has long known the union was providing a supplement beyond Medicare coverage.

``These are life-saving benefits,'' Silver said. ``I'm not about to walk around and unplug everybody from their heart machines, their dialysis. I'm not about to pull the plug,'' Silver said.

But MTA leadership, led by CEO Roger Snoble and Chairman Zev Yaroslavsky, has remained just as steadfast in its position that the agency won't cave in to union demands.

Yaroslavsky has repeatedly said the offer being made to the mechanics today is generous and will be the same next week or next month - the only difference will be paychecks lost to the picket line.

``We've put what we think is a very fair offer together for our employees,'' Snoble said.

The MTA has offered mechanics a four-year contract containing a 6 percent increase, while the union is seeking a 10.5 percent pay raise over three years, in addition to incremental pay increases every quarter.

The average mechanic earns almost $50,000 a year, although 21 mechanics earned $100,000 last year with overtime. Mechanics also can retire after 23 years on the job with monthly pension checks or lump-sum payouts topping $200,000.

Members on the picket lines point to the MTA's past history of excesses and current high-paid executives like Snoble, who earns $295,000 a year.

Lisa Mascaro, [phone]

lisa.mascaro(at)dailynews.com

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Source: Agencies

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