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Lhota, Samuelsen In War of Words Over Who Stalled Contract

By SARAH DORSEY
Posted 7/15/13

Transport Workers Union Local 100 President John Samuelsen snapped back last week after former Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Joseph J. Lhota questioned his willingness to negotiate a new contract and accused him of taking a “gimme, gimme, gimme” bargaining stance.

During NY1’s televised Republican mayoral debate, Mr. Lhota was asked how he could be expected to settle all the city’s unresolved labor contracts when he’d been unable to reach an agreement with the transit union. The local’s 38,000 members have been working under an expired contract since both sides agreed to negotiate past the Jan. 15, 2012 deadline. Pacts for the other municipal unions are also expired—in many cases for at least three years—and talks stalled over Mayor Bloomberg’s insistence the city can’t afford to pay retroactive raises.

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