So, we have a deal. Just in time for the New Year. And the question is: how did the transit workers do?

On the one hand, Transit Workers Local 100 president Roger Toussaint comes out on top on the issue that sparked the three-day strike–there will be no give backs on pensions. Workers with 25 years on the job can still retire with a full pension at 55 and they will contribute just 2 percent of their wages to the defined benefit plan (meaning, a pension that pays out a guaranteed amount each month–which, in my book, is a real pension plan).

But, the contract does have a new bad element–health care costs will now fall on the workers in a new financial hit to their pockets. They will have to pay 1.5 percent of their wages towards health coverage. This immediately drains a part of the 10.5 percent hike over three years. And it’s a terrible precedent for the rest of the public employees. And it continues the slow but sure erosion of wages and benefits (and I’ll toss in the small but important point that the contract will now expire in January of 2009, not December 2008, giving the union less leverage if they are forced into giving back on pensions three years from now–and I will bet my last dollar that the demand on pensions will be even harsher then; if you think the billionaire mayor, who has no clue what regular people go through to make ends meet, was over the top in using coded language during the strike–referring to the strkers as “thuggish”–what do you think he’ll do and say if the transit authority goes after pensions in 2009 when he’s just one year away from leaving City Hall to go back to spending his fortune?).

I don’t know that Toussaint had a choice at this point. It’s unlikely that he could have taken his members back out on strike–particularly after he was undercut by his own international union, the Transport Workers Union, and, as many labor activists in the city felt, was not given the kind of 100 percent backing from the rest of the city’s labor leadership. Overall, the financial piece of this deal is not terrible, if you look just at the three-year period. But, long-term, I think it is yet another weakening of the idea that people deserve to earn a decent enough living to provide for their families security.

Obviously, the final point, lest I forget, is: now, can we begin to discuss the idea of Medicare For All? It is the only solution to resolve the health care crisis, which, again, has proven to be a financial albatross.