Roger Toussaint, Local 100 president, has charged that a shortfall in Local 100's health benefits has been exacerbated by a hardline bargaining stance by transit officials that began after his election last December. Transport Workers claim that the issue of payments to the health fund is being used by MTA as a challenge to the local's new president. Toussaint said that the MTA has taken union members hostage and violated the union contract. MTA Vice President for Labor Relations Gary Dellaverson claims that the last contract signed by the TWU and the Transportation Authority, which provided for a 12.5 percent increase in wages and benefits over three years, allows the MTA to reduce its payments to the health fund if the union fails to make agreed upon productivity changes. The so-called productivity changes have mostly taken the form of broadbanding, which means the combining of jobs, whereby an electrician, for example, is required to do a machinist's job.
Several lawsuits are pending that challenge the legality of broadbanding.
Shop stewards at the repair yards see broadbanding as a way to make it easier to fire militant workers, by asking them to do work for which they are inadequately trained. There is also a big threat to the safety of the riding public involved in broadbanding. At the rally, Frank McCann, vice president of the national TWU, pledged the full support of his office. Representatives of other unions, as well as all four of New York City' s Democratic mayoral candidates, gave short speeches of support. Statements of support from Sens.