He said he was also unhappy about being fined two days' pay for every day he was on strike, adding: "I do not want to go back to work without a contract."

Pataki did not soften his tone, saying that judges could not grant amnesty to erase the individual fines faced by workers. With transit workers' base pay averaging $900 a week, being fined two days pay for each of the three days on strike would cost them $1,080 each on average.

Pataki said: "I think that there's a lesson to be learned from this: no one is above the law. You break the law and the consequences are real."

Before the negotiations collapsed late Monday night, the authority increased its wage offer to a 3 percent raise the first year, 4 percent the second and 3.5 percent the third year. It also dropped its demand to raise the retirement age for future workers to 62, from 55 for current workers. But it added a demand that new workers pay 6 percent of their earnings toward their pensions, up from 2 percent for current workers.

The authority also agreed to make Martin Luther King Jr. Day a holiday for union workers, and it dropped its demand that future workers pay 1 percent of their wages toward health premiums. The union's current workers do not pay premiums for their basic health plan.

Toussaint has said he would steadfastly oppose having workers pay health premiums.

Jose Orjuela, 36, a pre-production manager for a cinema advertising firm in midtown, walked to work this week from his home in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He celebrated the end of the strike.

"We were all freaking out when we heard," he said. "People were yelling 'about freakin' time.' It was huge. We were just relieved it was all over."