NEW YORK — Banging drums, blowing whistles and chanting slogans, thousands of transit workers rallied in midtown yesterday to let the Metropolitan Transportation Authority know they want more R-E-S-P-E-C-T as well as more M-O-N-E-Y, the New York Daily News reported.
Scores of cops on foot, horseback and motorcycles were at and around Madison Ave. and 44th St. to make sure the demonstrators didn’t get unruly. Police reported no trouble.
“This is as much about dignity as it is about money,” Transport Workers Union Local 100 President Roger Toussaint told the crowd. “We will be second-class citizens no more. We’re going to come out with a contract, with dignity and respect.”
The union, which represents 34,000 workers, began negotiations with the MTA Sept. 20. The workers’ three-year contract expires Dec. 15.
Demands include an unspecified pay raise, more money from the MTA for the employees health benefit fund and an end to what union leaders called excessive disciplinary charges.
Union negotiators have cited a gap in pay between its workers and those at the MTA commuter railroads.
The MTA has projected a $663 million budget deficit for next year – spurring talk that bus and subway fares could jump to $2.
The agency hasn’t said yet what kind of a wage hike it’s willing to give. Only a handful of placards carried the threat of a strike yesterday, but a possible walkout wasn’t far from demonstrators’ minds.
“It might be necessary,” said Nikita Myles, 43, an electrician from Long Island.
Toussaint has refused to rule out a strike but said the union was not “trigger happy.”
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Manhattan), Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan), United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten and New York City Central Labor Council President Brian McLaughlin were among a long list of speakers who voiced their support for the workers.
Some joined the demonstrators later as they headed to Gov. Pataki’s office at Third Ave. and 41st St., snagging evening rush-hour traffic in the 40s from Third to Sixth Aves.
Toussaint said the mass move was less orderly than it could have been because City Hall canceled a march permit at the last minute.
He shrugged it off as “just an effort to intimidate transport workers.”