The Month in Review for September 2006

Anthony Bottalico was removed from the MTA Board. ACRE made several last minute offers to the State Senate attempting to help Bottalico stay on the MTA Board. The Senate rejected all of ACRE's offers.

Bottalico's replacement is Norman Brown from the International Association of Machinist and Aerospace Workers. Congratulations to Norman. It is refreshing to finally have a real union man in this position.

Recently ACRE was officially notified by the MTA that ACRE has the 55/20 benefit for health and welfare coverage in the MTA Pension Plan. The notification came 2 ½ years after ACRE ratified their “historic” contract. ACRE does not have the 55/10 provision as previously claimed. The LIRR unions have the 55/10 benefit. The 55/20 is a benefit for an employee retiring at age 55 with 20 years of service to receive the medical coverage until age 65.

ACRE still insists after 3 months the M-N Coalition initialed a contract. The Coalition signed a term sheet in late June. A contract offer is a Memorandum of Understanding. If the Coalition had signed a contract offer 3 months ago, it would have been circulated for ratification or Metro-North would have filed a complaint with the National Mediation Board. (see Local 817 newsletter for verification, appendix I) ACRE probably does not realize what a term sheet is, ACRE signs whatever contract offer the MTA places on the table.

The 2005 LM2 reports for ACRE Local Division 9 still have not been received by the U.S. Department of Labor. These documents were supposed to be filed by 3/31/06.

ACRE's endorsement of Jeanine Pirro for N.Y. State Attorney General was certainly ill advised. Review the article regarding Jeanine Pirro's term of office as Westchester's County District Attorney, which appeared in the Westchester Guardian (see appendix II). The coverage of her troubles have been well documented in the media these past several weeks.

ACRE Local Division 1 announced that they advised ACRE members participating in the Tims program to return the machines because ACRE could not reach an agreement with Metro-North for compensation for Train Service Members operating a Tims. The program was a pilot program that expired on 8/31/06. (see page 2 of the attached article from The Bulletin, NY Division, Electric Railroaders' Association dated July 2006, appendix III). If ACRE attempted to secure an agreement for train service members operation of the Tims machines, the agreement should have been completed before ACRE members participated in the program.

ACRE is again informing members that ACRE will not accept a co-payment of health and welfare benefits by members without obtaining the lifetime medical coverage. ACRE has altered their position several times this year concerning the co-payment issue. Earlier this year, Mike Doyle informed some Division 9 members that ACRE could not obtain the lifetime medical benefit because the benefit was too expensive a cost item. ACRE's reverting to its earlier position occurs after ACRE officers spent most of the summer blaming the M-N Coalition for the co-payment of health and welfare by insisting the Coalition “signed” for the co-payment of health and welfare. ACRE officers also contend that it would be useless for the organization to fight the co-payment issue under this scenario. The M-N Coalition did not sign a deal and ACRE forgets that during promotion of the current contract, Doyle and Bottalico stated they had “addressed” the issue by having the new hires co-pay and that no current ACRE member would have to co-pay their medical coverage. No conditions were included in ACRE's assurances that no ACRE member would have to co-pay.

Have an ACRE officer explain the escalator feature of the co-payment for health and welfare. ACRE has avoided mentioning this component of the co-payment.

The officers of UTU Local 77