Dana Rubinstein also contributed writing and reporting to this story.
If the Metropolitan Transportation Authority doesn’t take decisive action to improve working conditions for Access-A-Ride dispatchers, they will strike, the union representing those workers told POLITICO New York.
"We haven't set the date [for the strike], but it's coming," said John Samuelsen, president of the Transport Workers Union Local 100, which represents the roughly 500 workers responsible for dispatching wheelchair-accessible vehicles to New Yorkers across the city.
The union's executive board voted unanimously to authorize the strike, doing on so on the same day Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he would raise the minimum wage for state workers to $15 an hour.
Samuelsen said he wouldn't actually call the strike until after next week’s MTA board meeting.
Any strike would likely prove "terrible" for the mobility impaired, said Jim Weisman, CEO of the United Spinal Association.
"Think how many thousands of rides a day they’re doing," he said.
One of the union’s main complaints is that the MTA’s contractor, North Carolina-based Global Contact Services, is not adhering to the pay structure outlined in its contract with the MTA. The contract stipulates call center agents be paid $13 to $14 an hour; they are currently starting at between $9 and $11 an hour.
The governor’s minimum wage policy only applies to state workers. The Access-A-Ride dispatchers are contracted by the MTA, a state-run authority.
"If it applies to the state, it should apply to people doing business with the state,” Samuelsen said Wednesday. “We're going to pursue that. But the immediate need is to get rid of GCS, to send them back down to the Carolinas."
A spokesman for the MTA referred POLITICO to authority chairman Tom Prendergast's comments at the October board meeting, when he said the authority had began a due diligence review "and more."
"We need to [complete the investigation] as quickly as possible and bring these matters to a head in terms of what actions we need to take," he said.
The strike authorization represents the latest stage of a steadily escalating battle.
On Friday, the TWU sent a letter to the MTA formally asking it to terminate its contract with the operators of an Access-a-Ride call center in Queens. The letter was sent after ongoing talks with GCS collapsed last Thursday, amid rancor and protests.
Twice during those negotiations, union representatives stood up in protest, in solidarity with call-center workers, who were doing doing the same thing. Union members wore black for the occasion.
In September, approximately 25 employees filed a class-action lawsuit against Global Contact Services and the MTA, accusing GCS of unlawfully terminating workers who join the union, and for exploiting employees who are predominantly black and Hispanic and got their jobs through city-administered welfare-to-work programs.
The MTA launched its own investigation into the GCS contract after current and former call center agents delivered impassioned testimony at authority board meetings.
At the September meeting, TWU Local 100 President John Samuelsen compared the call center to a plantation.
“Gregory Alcorn [GCS President] and GCS, they have a plantation mentality,” Samuelsen told the board. “They may be from North Carolina but in this particular instance the plantation he’s running is right on Northern Boulevard and it’s your responsibility.”
In October, 11 workers and union representatives also delivered testimony.
One GCS call agent, Robert Brown, described GCS policies toward workers as “harsh” and “inconsiderate.”
“We love our clients,” Brown said. “We love what we do. We do not love a large share of the policies of GCS it has with the workers.”
“I have heard enough to demonstrate to my view that there is no good faith on the part of this vendor,” said MTA board member Charles Moerdler, in response. “In the next meeting, absent some indication from the inspector general, I will move to terminate [the contract].”
GCS, which is based in Salisbury, North Carolina, won an almost $153 million dollar contract to operate the access-a-ride call center in December 2012.
Last year, workers voted to join TWU Local 100, and the union began negotiating with GCS management.
Speaking with POLITICO last week, GCS attorney Eric Stuart said, “It’s our intention to negotiate a contract that is fair … and we hope that the union will come prepared to negotiate and not attempt to negotiate through the media.”