What Do We Want? A Straight-Up Vote Without The Possibility Of Binding Arbitration! When Do We Want It? Now!

After transit workers rejected their proposed contract, the Daily News reports that TWU Local 100 is unhappy about the MTA’s moving to take the contract to binding arbitration:

Bus and subway workers will fight the MTA’s move toward binding arbitration — with some even raising the possibility yesterday of a second illegal strike.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority wants the state Public Employment Relations Board to form a panel that could decide the terms of a contract. It will file paperwork to start the process this week, MTA spokesman Tom Kelly said.

Ed Watt, the top deputy to Transport Workers Union Local 100 President Roger Toussaint, said union leaders would “do all we can to make sure that [binding arbitration] doesn’t happen.”

But leaders of a dissident group, which fought the tentative contract, went even further.

Transit Workers for a Just Contract called for a strike authorization vote by workers if the MTA pushes aggressively for binding arbitration. In one of its flyers, it asked workers to “prepare for a possible resumption of our strike. We’ve shown that we can and will shut the city down.”

Striking over pensions is one thing — it’s a ready-made Magazine or Week in Review article! — but walking out to avoid binding arbitration?