I read with interest the rantings of Ken Zapinski of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development titled, "A Time for Concessions" (Forum, Aug. 31). For four decades, I have proudly served as the attorney for Local 85 of the Amalgamated Transit Union and I negotiated and arbitrated the two most recent contracts between the Chicago Transit Authority and the unions to which Mr. Zapinski alluded in his article. Let's get the facts straight.

Mr. Zapinski asserts that "Port Authority bus drivers are the highest paid in the country when you adjust for ... cost-of-living." He cites two studies. Unfortunately, he fails to mention that the second study simply repeated the conclusions of the first study.

More significantly, these studies based their findings on ACCRA cost-of-living data, a product of the Council for Community and Economic Research. Steven Reed, an economist at the U.S. Department of Labor, has stated that the consumer price index "published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is the closest thing we've got to the cost-of-living index. The ACCRA ... index ... is designed to provide the best possible measure of relative differences among urban areas in the cost of consumer goods and services appropriate for professional and managerial households in the top income quintile." This means the ACCRA index is geared toward people who make at least $174,000 a year. It has nothing to do with the cost-of-living for a bus driver or ordinary worker!

Second, while Mr. Zapinski criticizes the retirement benefits Port Authority employees receive, he might be surprised to learn that over the past 19 years they have contributed from their paychecks more than $100 million to their pension plan while the Port Authority has contributed $30 million. And while the Port Authority was making this contribution for some 5,000 to 6,000 Local 85 employees and retirees, they contributed more than double that amount to the pension plan for only 200 to 300 management employees. Now that the rank-and-file employees seek to reap the benefits of their own sacrifices, Mr. Zapinski says no!

Mr. Zapinski extols the benefits of the retiree health-care trust put in place for the employees of the Chicago Transit Authority. Having drafted and fought to have that trust implemented, I would point out that Local 85 proposed the same type of trust for the Port Authority.

There is no doubt the employees represented by Local 85 have good wages and benefits. Over the years, they have negotiated to obtain them, invariably giving up something they had or were entitled to. This is what collective bargaining in a free society is all about. The benefits these employees enjoy are something which every working man and woman in this country should strive to obtain.

The employees at the Port Authority are cognizant of the rising cost of health care and the need to address it. It is, however, an issue which almost all industrialized nations of the free world have effectively dealt with, yet here in America, when President Clinton attempted 16 years ago to discuss universal health care, many business leaders and those on the right mobilized their scare machine to thwart the effort. Had action been taken then, we would not be in such a health-care mess now. If Barack Obama becomes president, America might finally deal with this issue.

In the meantime, if the Allegheny Conference is interested in the development of this community, it ought to seek ways to fund transit other than on the backs of workers. Since public transit is vital to the economic growth of this community, as recognized most recently by the fact finder appointed to analyze Port Authority contract issues, perhaps the conference should urge local corporations to buy bus passes for their employees. Better yet, when corporate America and/or its CEOs make exorbitant profits or wages, perhaps we could tax them to subsidize transit. Their backs are bigger and better able to sustain "concessions" than those of the working men and women who provide transit service to our community.