A dissident group within the TWU, the New Directions movement, promised a 20/50 pension plan, among other things, as part of its election campaign. After several close and bitterly contested elections, by the time of the strike it had taken over the leadership of the TWU. Despite the damage done to the transit system by a retroactive enhancement of the pension plan in the 1960s, the New York State legislature passed a 20/50 plan several times over the objections of MTA management in the years leading up to the strike. Each time it was vetoed by then-Governor Pataki, who had signed off on hugely expensive pension enhancements for other public employee unions.