By Doug Cunningham

New York City Transit workers are back to work after the Metro transportation Authority took pensions off the table. Talks still have to be held to resolve a contract agreement. The three day strike in defense of pensions was the first transit strike in New York City in 25 years. TWU Local 100 said transit workers had to walk out to "stop the MTA’s 11th hour pension ambush. We walked out strong, and we walk back stronger." A judge ruled the strike illegal and imposed fines of a million dollars a day. Individual workers were fined two days pay for every day on strike. But New York state's Taylor law also makes it illegal to alter pensions at the bargaining table - the demand for pension concessions by the MTA that triggered the walkout. The law says the parties have to go to the state legislature in order to change public employee pensions. Funds are being set up for the TWU workers who went on strike to protect pensions and a separate legal defense fund is also being created.