NYC Subway and Bus Strike

I'm on vacation this week, so it isn't a terrible inconvenience for me right now.

The MTA has bent over backwards to accomodate the TWU demands, yet the union insists on striking. In addition to the above mentioned fines, each worker will lose two days pay for every day out on strike. The TWU will also lose their union dues check-off provision.

This almost ruined the union back in 1980, but this new bunch running the show wasn't there and doesn't care to remember. And it's laughable when the union speaks about fighting for its "unborns." Let the unborns do their own contract negotiating when their time comes.

I hope Bloomberg, Pataki and the courts break them big time.

 

Wait wait wait - did I just hear a republican say 'screw the unborns'?

Or is this just kinda the same as the conserative pundit saying 'abortion is wrong, but crime will go down if we abort all black babies...'

 

Except that once the MTA has a two-tiered contract, they will use that as a wedge against the older workers, forcing them to either take fewer hours or some of the same provisions. The fight over that isn't about this contract, it's about the next contract.

A pox on both their houses, as far as I'm concerned. The TWU shouldn't walk away from binding arbitration, and MTA shouldn't be claiming poverty when they just offered half-price fares for Christmas.

 

They need Landon Donovan. He solves these kinds of problems.

 

The transit workers are going to be killed over this. they have already gone on TV asking for public support. support? 7 million riders have been inconvenienced. most of those 7 million pay a decent portion of their own health care, if they even have it. most probably get raises once every three years, let alone 3% every year. I'm sure they'll find lots of sympathy.

also, aren't liberals always crying about the 'public good'? i'd think the public good would be to remain on the job while a new contract is negotiated. but instead 30,000 people see it as their right to disrupt the lives of 7 million (that is just the MTA users)...hardly the public good.

 

The TWU is run by hard-asses, though, and this is like the Alamo for city unions. I was surprised to hear this morning that the MTA was going to give up the age 62 retirement requirement for new hires. (Not budging on the med insurance issue, though.)

People assume the MTA is a city-run agency. I used to work right next door the MTA offices on 44th & Mad, and any time there was a contract negotiation going on, the transit guys would amass and shut Madison down. Every once in a while we got the big rat. Good times...

 

For a different take on the strike, go to stevegillard.blogspot.com.

Righties, beware, he may raise your blood pressure.

 

You're so in touch.

 

Clearly it's not the Mayor's fault, he doesn't control the MTA. But PAtaki has got to take a lot of blame. Admittedly, I'm a wild eyed liberal, believer in unions, and suspicious of the free market. However, I think the MTA last minute offer was workable enough to at least have them stop the clock and avert the strike for now. The union has actually been winning the public relations war in the last couple of years, and they're going to blow that political capital real fast, with some good reason.

Nevertheless, the bigger picture here is the mismanagement of the mass transit system by PAtaki and the MTA. PAtaki gave away billions to 1199 when he was up for reelection in 2002, a give away that even I thought (an almost socialist) was pretty much insane-- remember how it infuriated the mayor? And rightly so. Then he has decreased funding of the subways, and financed its operations with debt, paying interest on it now that eats up about 20% of the MTA's operating budget. None of this is lost on the union, and shouldn't be.

And beyond that, between the two sets of books scandal, the failure to spend federal funds dedicated to security in the subways, and the fact that it is often the case that the MTA doesn't actually know how much money it has and doesn't have, the union with justification feels why should the workers bear the brunt of such terrible mismanagement.

Anyway, my commute was easier than usual... I live below 96th Street, and work in downtown brooklyn, it was like getting around in a blizzard but without the snow. IT was great.

 

FWIW, "gilliard"

Drove my wife to the foot of the bridge this morning. She says there were not that many people walking across the bridge and that there are almost no cars downtown. A bunch of people from her office are starting their holiday tomorrow to avoid the whole thing.

I'm sympathetic to the union and I think Pataki has totally ********ed the MTA, but the MTA's last minute offer seems like a pretty significant concession.

 

IIRC, what the police & firefighters accepted was a lower starting salary, while recruits are in training, in return for a higher top pay. I don't recall any 2-tier structure on salaries (although there may be something on benefits). This was because police at top pay were (& are) still far below suburban departments & the NYPD loses quite a few officers each year to the other police forces for the higher top pay. Of course, the reply on this issue is that the suburban forces are far smaller, so that officers who wanted to go there in the first place join the NYPD only until they can transfer there or to the FDNY with its 24-hours on, 72-hours off schedule.

 

But he's not talking about the actual structure of the negotiations in that section so much as how Bloomberg has injected himself into the negotiations on the side of the MTA by threatening the $25,000 lawsuit per worker (btw, I'm under the impression those fines are not the Taylor Law, which sets fines at 2x daily salary, but a separate lawsuit. Correct?). He's criticizing Bloomberg for putting all the blame for the strike on the TWU, not for some conduct in the actual bargaining.

FWIW, I thought his lower post about the racial dynamics of the strike was very interesting, and vastly underreported, especially given that the union head is Hatian-American.

Edit: I will say this, though. If Bloomberg had been in charge of these negotiations, this never would have happened.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/20/opinion/20stern.html

 

The holiday fares were a one time only thing to bring money into the city (that blogger seems to be very concerned about this). I don't trust the MTA, but they are projecting deficits starting 2007, (once 2006 elections pass, probably 2006 also). They are certainly not swimming in cash.

On top of this, as the person posted on that blog, a strike and rising fares are always going to hurt the poor and working class the most, because the subway is the only option for them. It's easy for professionals who can telecommute or afford $3 a ride or a cab ride to support the TWU.

That said, I understand the TWU not wanting to set a precedent by making health care payments, but you can't have full benefits and the obscene raises they want. Pick one.

 

Yeah, that's exactly what I was saying.

You're smart enough to know that the public perception of issues like this are colored (bad pun) by race (and class), especially given the people involved in the negotiations. It's entirely possible for Pataki and Kalikow not to be racist and for race to have a large factor in the political dynamics of the negotiations. I especially had this section in mind:

I don't know enough about the details of this particular arbitration process to know. My experience from being in other contract negotiation situations is that each arbitration situation differs given the conditions set.

Listen, I think the union made a mistake given the last offer the MTA made, but I also think they felt they had been backed into a corner. They were inflexible at the last minute, but I think the threats from Bloomberg, at least in part, helped to create that inflexibility.

 

My wife & I know a few city firefighters, and all of them live outside of the city in places like Mt. Kisco and New Rochelle -- because they live where they can afford it and where they can get good public schools. I have no idea where TWU workers live.

 

This is no big deal for New Yorkers. Car Pools 4 in a car allowed into the City. If you have 3 or less there are areas in all the boroughs to pick uo extra people to make four. Plus companies are playing for parking.

It is not a problem some companies are paying cabs and limos to pick up thetr workers 5 at a time and take them home at the end of the day for $150 a day like they did in the strike in the 1980's.

Also companies have suites of hotel rooms if out of borough people want to stay there until the strike is over.

It is under control.

 

I am for the Union if they gave 4 percent with no strings attached there would have been no strike. MTA was running with a billion dollar surplus in profits.