Transit Workers Shut Down Broadway To Slam MTA, CEO 'Pat Fraud'

LOWER MANHATTAN, NY — Thousands of New York City public transit workers turned up the heat on MTA brass Wednesday evening by packing two blocks of Broadway outside the agency's headquarters as they seek a new labor contract.

At a fiery rally that was part protest and part street festival, Transport Workers Union Local 100 leaders said they would not give an inch in their increasingly tense negotiations with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

"They want, they want, they want — and you know what they’re gonna get? They’re gonna get nothing," union President Tony Utano told the cheering crowd near Bowling Green.

Union officials also slammed MTA Chairman and CEO Patrick Foye — whom they nicknamed "Pat Fraud" — for not dealing in good faith with the workers who keep the city's subways and buses moving. Posters at the rally depicted Foye as the character Woody from the animated movie "Toy Story."

The rally — which a union spokesperson said drew about 10,000 people — was the latest episode in increasingly bitter contract negotiations between the MTA and the roughly 41,000-member union, whose public transit workers have been without a contract since May.

The talks publicly devolved this month after Foye reportedly accused Utano of running a "Specialty Drug Scam"over a proposal to cut medication costs. Union officials berated agency bosses at an MTA Board meeting last week, with one threatening to "tar and feather" Foye. Union workers have also slowed bus commutes to pressure the MTA, according to THE CITY.

The MTA's asks for higher employee health care contributions and overtime cutbacks are among the sticking points in the negotiations, according to union officials and news reports. Union leaders argued those demands are coming from ungrateful, out-of-touch executives perched in the Broadway building at which workers directed some their ire Wednesday evening.

"They can take those demands and they can kiss my Irish ass," said Transport Workers Union International President John Samuelsen, who added that the international union is in "lock step" with its local members in the MTA fight.

New York City Transit worker Kevin Mims said officials need to make a deal that provides a living wage and job stability to prevent high turnover.

"Money’s important, but what’s more important is stability, because money comes and goes," said Mims, who described himself as a veteran supply logistics worker.

MTA officials have not been as publicly heated as their union counterparts amid the contract dispute. Communications Director Tim Minton said the agency "will not negotiate in the press."

"As Chairman Foye has said on multiple occasions, we are focused on bargaining in good faith with TWU Local 100 and reaching a mutually acceptable contract," Minton said in a statement.

Utano harkened back to the infamous 1966 transit worker strike that shut down subway and bus service during another contract dispute. The MTA's "vicious" demands this year "make 1966 seem tame," he said.

The work stoppage led to the passage of a state law that limits public employees' right to strike. But union officials nonetheless threatened to bring the city to a halt if they don't get their way.

"They have consultants, they have lawyers, they have suits and they got plenty of bulls---," Utano said, spurring the crowd to chant the obscenity. "Guess what they don’t have: They don’t have the power."