Many New Yorkers are questioning why, just hours before the strike deadline, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) made a last minute demand that ended negotiations. After the MTA agreed to improve its earlier wage proposals, dropped its demand for concessions on health benefits and stopped calling for an increase in the retirement age, the authority's chairman asked that all new transit workers contribute 6 percent of their wages toward pensions, an increase of 4%. The Union balked at the last minute proposal, which would have saved the transit authority $20 million over the next three years. The amount is equal to what the New York City Police Department will spend on extra overtime during the first two days of the strike.
See "In Final Hours, M.T.A. Took Big Pension Risk", Steven Greenhouse, The New York Times, December 20, 2005