With the state budget still in flux, union negotiations started in earnest Monday between the MTA and Transport Workers Union Local 100, which represents some 40,000 bus and subway workers.

The union is demanding higher wages, better health benefits, and an improved pension.

“My message to the MTA is this: Don’t try and nickel-and-dime us. Don’t try and balance the budget on our backs,” Local 100 President Richard Davis said in a statement.

Monday’s start to negotiations comes amid uncertainty surrounding the state budget — which is expected to cover the transit agency’s deficit, but is currently 17 days late. Fare hikes remain on the table.

Although Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Janno Lieber painted a grim picture this winter of service cuts and possible layoffs if the agency’s isn’t fully funded, the competing plans put forth by Gov. Hochul and Democratic lawmakers both propose covering the MTA’s shortfall.

“When most of NYC was isolated at home, we were on the job, moving essential workers, keeping the hospitals open and staffed, ensuring the food supply chain was functioning so families could put food on the table,” Davis added. “Many of our union brothers and sisters died, and many more fell sick and survived.”

A union spokesman said the transit workers’ demands include additional insurance coverage for mental health services and an end to a ceiling on overtime pay counting toward pension payouts.

The TWU is also pushing for two COVID-specific demands — a “COVID Remembrance Day” holiday and lifetime benefits for dependents of members who died of COVID. The union is seeking several additional contract changes, including hazard pay for members and six months of parental leave.

The transit workers’ contract is set to expire May 15.

The current contract was ratified by workers in January 2020, just months before the COVID-19 pandemic that threw MTA finances into disarray and killed some 110 TWU members along with other transit workers.

The four-year deal came after six months of bitter negotiations.

Union officials were accused of intentionally slowing down bus service with overzealous “safety inspections” to pressure the MTA as negotiations wore on.

Then-MTA Chairman Patrick Foye didn’t fight fair either, the union alleged. The transit boss accused then-TWU Local 100 President Tony Utano of running a “drug scam” after the union leader met with a firm that brokers low-cost or free specialty drugs from pharmaceutical company foundations.

In the end, transit workers scored a 9.8% pay bump, and Foye called the contract a “win-win-win” for taxpayers, riders and workers.

“We have a terrific workforce and look forward to productive discussions with our labor partners on a range of topics that can make transit work better for New Yorkers,” Shanifah Rieara, the MTA’s chief adviser for communications and policy, said in a statement to the Daily News regarding the current negotiations.