Jun 27, 2007 7:20 pm US/Central
City Reaches 5-Year Deal With CTA Labor Unions
Taxpayers Expected To Kick In $200 Million For Deal To Work
by Mike Flannery
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
Mayor Richard M. Daley announced a five-year deal with the CTA's labor unions Wednesday. The agreement could cut costs in the long run, but there is a big catch.
As CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery reports, the mayor says state taxpayers must kick in $200 million, or the deal won't work.
Union leaders and transit officials conferred in a City Hall corridor Wednesday afternoon, a few feet from where Daley unveiled a new five-year labor contract.
"It's better than havin' a melt-down, a crisis," Daley said. "Oh, we're gonna have layoffs, we're gonna have service cutbacks."
The deal preserves many of the generous pension and health care benefits for CTA workers that have helped to bring the system to the verge of bankruptcy. But the agreement also requires new employee contributions to pensions and health care for the future, reducing the CTA's costs by perhaps $80 million a year from what those costs would otherwise be.
The whole deal, though, is based on the assumption that state taxpayers will somehow kick in $200 million in the next few weeks.
"Yes, they've done their job," Daley said. "Now it's time for the governor and the General Assembly to follow through."
If all that state money materializes, officials said riders would not face fare increases.
"If they don't get the money, then we, it'll fall back on us, the riders," said CTA rider Merle Talison.
"I need every nickel I can get," said CTA commuter Pat Manser.
Still, service cuts and fare increases loom if the governor and General Assembly do not come up with all the money the mayor requested by September.
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