"The MTA is trying to provoke a strike," Ed Watt, Secretary Treasurer of the Transport Workers Union, said last night. "But they're making a serious miscalculation if they think they can divide our members."

Both the union and the MTA management made surprise moves yesterday.

First, union President Roger Toussaint declared a limited strike to start Monday morning at two private MTA bus lines whose workers have been without a contract for three years.

Since those workers are not covered by the state's Taylor Law, the action was a clever way for Toussaint to put pressure on the MTA for an overall settlement without risking heavy fines for the union.

That strike will spread to all the city subways and buses at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday if no contract is reached.

A few hours after the union's announcement, MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow warned that the MTA's offer of a 9% wage increase over three years was final. Kalikow threatened to declare an impasse if the union didn't accept it.

So the reply to Toussaint's offer to keep negotiating until Monday was: Don't expect to get anything more in further negotiations, even if the MTA has a $1 billion surplus.

According to several participants in Thursday night's talks, Kalikow told union leaders he was under pressure from both Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Pataki not to budge.

If Bloomberg and Pataki think TWU leaders will accept any deal, that union officials won't risk jail time or millions of dollars in fines in a walkout, they are underestimating Toussaint and the anger and bitterness among his rank and file.

Many TWU members are fed up with what they call the "plantation" mentality of MTA management. And most of them weren't around during the last transit strike in 1980, when the union suffered a disastrous defeat.

Toussaint, a militant leader in the mold of the legendary Mike Quill, looks instead for inspiration to the 1966 transit strike. That's when Quill defied the courts and the city leaders in a successful strike and even won amnesty for his members.

As for the rest of the city's labor leaders, many are beginning to believe that what happens to the TWU, one of the city's strongest unions, could shape labor relations in this town for years to come.

That's why the city's Central Labor Council is organizing a massive rally of support for the TWU on Monday afternoon in front of Pataki's Manhattan office.

Anyone who has ever been in a bitter strike knows that once the battle is joined no one can predict where it will end or how widespread the damage will be.

With the clock ticking down again, the governor had better take some time off from running for President and pay more attention to this looming crisis in his MTA.