TWU boss Samuelsen accuses MTA of ‘fraud’ in contract talks for railroad workers

The Transport Workers Union boss is urging the state Senate to investigate MTA’s leadership — accusing agency brass of “criminal fraud” in contract talks that are part of a “scheme” to cheat commuter rail workers out of their deserved raises.

TWU national president John Samuelsen blasted Metropolitan Transportation Authority chair Janno Lieber and Metro-North Railroad president Catherine Rinaldi — claiming they’re trying to skirt a raise “pattern” for city subway and bus workers.

TWU represents 600 Metro North mechanic𒅌s and coach cleaners as well as the city subway and bus workers.

Metro-North is a commuter railroad running from the n🐈ort📖hern suburbs into Grand Central terminal.

The MTA gave hikes to subway and bus workers covering 24 months in the most recent contract; railroad workers were offered a comparable rais🐷e over 26 months.

Samuelsen said the MTA indicated the city transit workers got a bigger raise because of a concession for subcon𝔍tracting work for elevator cont🍒racts.

“The MTA/Metro-North is pursuing a collective bargaining strategy for Metro-North Railroad which is knowingly and intentionally predicated upon false pretenses, upon a flat out lie,” Samuelsen charged in a blistering letter to Senate Labor Committee chair Jessica Ramos (D-Queens).

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The union honcho alleged the MTA leadership’s actions “seems to constitute a scheme to defraud workers at Metro-North of ‘contract pattern’ raises” — and called it “criminal fraud.”

Ramos said she’s reviewing Samuelsen’s request.

“These allegations are indeed very serious, both for the impacted workers and the taxpayers. I have received President Samuelson’s letter and am assessing the appropriate next steps,” Ramos told The Post.

But the MTA’s chief negotiator charged Samuelsen’s allegations were nonsense — insisting the contract for city subway and bus workers doesn’t set a pattern for commuter railroad workers.

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The suburban railroads follow their own bargaining pattern, not one based on the contract for the city transit system, Anita Miller, the MTA’s chief of labor, asserted.

“As you are fully aware, there are and have been differences between the TWU Local 100 agreements at New York City Transit and the two MTA railroads over many years and agreements,”  Miller said in an Aug. 29 letter to Samuelsen.

“You may not like it, but this is the reality of decades of negotiations and agreements,” she wrote.

She also told Samuelsen unions representing 100% of Long Island Railroad workers and 75% of Metro-North empl𝓡oyees have agreed to labor settlements that Samuelsen objects to.

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Those workers are represented by other unions — not the TWU, which is hanging tough.

Miller said she’s confident an agreement will ultimately be hammered out with TWU.

She also said Samuelsen’s use of “offensive language” at MTA leadership and staff is “not entitled to the dignity of a response.”

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An MTA spokesman on Sunday doubled down on the defense of the agency’s actions as proper and legal.

“As outlined in Ms. Miller’s letter to the MTA Board, agreements have been reached with unions representing most employees of our two commuter railroads, and in negotiations with the few unions remaining the MTA will continue to respect federal labor law and work within the federally required collective bargaining process rather than resorting to baseless personal attacks,” MTA’s chief of external relations, John McCarthy, stated.

Earlier this year, the Post published a series of stories exposing costly and outdated work rules kept in place at the Long Island Railroad because of union clout — a situation acknowledged by Lieber.

The commuter rail𒉰roads are covered under federal law and arౠe permitted to strike without severe consequences.

A strike by city subway and bus workers is illegal under state law — and the union is subject to stiff financial penalties and꧟ the loss of automatic dues collection if they 🐽walk out, as happened during a crippling 2005 Christmas season strike.