Usually, when talk of an impending Port Authority meltdown occurs this time of year, it revolves around the agency requiring state money to stave off a shutdown or service cutback.

This year, the bogeyman is the lack of a contract between the authority and Local 85, Amalgamated Transit Union, representing 2,300 operators, mechanics, other hourly personnel and first-level supervisors. They have been operating under the old contract since it expired in June.

So, it is still about the money.

DOWNTOWN TRAFFIC JAMMED—If PAT service stops some time after Dec. 1 due to a contract dispute, roughly half the people jamming the sidewalk on Wood Street will be in cars jamming the streets on their daily commute.

As of this writing, the authority board intends to impose a new contract Dec.1 that would include a 3 percent annual pay raise, raising the retirement rate to age 60 with 30 years of service for employees to receive lifetime health care benefits, and incrementally raising employee health care contributions to 3 percent. In calendar year 2007, the median hourly wage for the rank-and-file bargaining unit was $22.85 an hour.

Union leaders who rejected an independent arbiter’s contract recommendation in August, said it is illegal for the authority to impose a new contract and would consider it a lockout. The union membership is scheduled to meet Nov. 23 “to educate members on the status of negotiations and to share legal options.”

Though the membership could authorize union leadership to call for a strike Dec. 1, Local 85 President Pat McMahon said, “We have no intentions of voluntarily stopping work.” However, he did not define whether a lockout is “voluntary” or not.

It is possible a judge could stay implementation of the new contract, pending a hearing and order operations to continue under the current contract terms. Those terms, according to County Chief Executive Dan Onorato and Port Authority Executive Director Steve Bland, are economically unsustainable.

As such, Onorato has refused to release $27.7 million collected this year from the county’s drink and car rental taxes until the authority increases operating efficiency and reins in long-term labor costs. The county funds are required in order for the state to release $184,457,990 in budgeted operating funds.

He told the New Pittsburgh Courier in September he would let the authority shut down if a new contract that addresses legacy costs (retiree pensions and health care costs) is not in place. The new contract would save the authority a total of $13.3 million in its operating budget over the next three years and another $115 million in legacy costs in the same period.

Onorato’s refusal to release the drink-tax funds prompted County Councilman Bill Robinson to introduce legislation Nov. 13 to establish council oversight of the authority’s budget.

“The chief executive has attempted to set conditions on the Port Authority’s ability to secure county funding,” said Robinson. “But because council alone bears the statutory burden of budgeting, I believe that determining what, if any, conditions should be imposed on Port Authority’s budget appropriation be made by this body.”

The authority has scheduled a meeting for Nov. 26 to tentatively announce a shutdown date. The authority last faced a strike in 1992, it lasted 28 days before a judge ordered drivers back to work. Although ridership is up in recent months, the authority never recouped the lost ridership from the last strike.

Roughly 110,000 people make daily round trips to Pittsburgh on PAT buses and trolleys. Nearly half of those who use PAT daily have no other means of transportation.

Allegheny Institute for Public Policy President Jake Haulk said he doubts there will be a shutdown and that some deal—perhaps even the arbiter’s recommendations, which rank and file union members never voted on—might be agreed to.

Otherwise, he said, with between 25,000 and 50,000 extra vehicles joining the daily commute and with nowhere for them to park Downtown, it would be “chaos.”

“If they shut it down, it would be a national news story about the failure of Democratic-run government that Republicans might be able to use,” he said.

(Send comments to cmorrow@newpittsburghcourier.com.)