Isn't that kind of hyperbole a bit over the top? Transit workers shouldn't be able to join together and demand better pay and conditions because, uh, someone might die. Yeah, that's the ticket.
Here's why I support the transit workers: because I want a raise too. And decent health care. And I'd like to retire some day with something more than the President's proposed social security deforms.
I'm with the workers because I am a worker.
The only thing I really don't understand is why the other NYC unions aren't showing some solidarity. NYC could be a catalyst if the rest of the organized workers joined the strike - even in symbolic ways. The PD could refuse overtime. Doormen could show up 1/2 an hour late. Hotel workers could take a sick day.
What this country needs (amongst so much else) is a real discussion about the decline of the worker. All this shit about offshoring jobs pales in comparison to what we have done to the workers that get up in the morning every day, do a solid days work, and get chumped by management over and over again through the years. Workers have become conditioned to being fucked - witness the vacation story referenced above (you do the search - it's out there)...
Anyway. Count me as one more NYer that supports the strike.
And me.
I had to walk about a mile total and take the East River water taxi and the PATH train today. But the TWU are doing what they have to do.
What angers me are people who say, "I don't even have a pension. Why should the transit workers get one at age 55?"
That is the mentality of sheep -- of servants who have been conditioned to love being kicked around, and to pull down any one who tries to demand better. It's a slave mentality, frankly.
No, most of us don't have pensions. My company (a large specialty publishing and information firm) stopped giving its workers pensions a few years before I started there. So because corporate (and government) America is shafting many of its workers, all the others should get the shaft too?
Being a transit worker can involve dangerous, filthy, deafening conditions, hostile customers, and long and grueling hours. Retiring at 55 is not unreasonable.
Oh, and the MTA would have the cash to meet its pension obligations if Pataki and co. in Albany hadn't been raiding the budget for the last several years.
Wow, this really cuts to the point. Essentially, they're saying my job sucks, so everyone else's should suck, too. It's been stunning to hear such anti-union garbage from supposed progresives.
As Dave points out at Seeing the Forest, these people should join a union:
If you're so concerned about old people that could freeze, pressure the mta not the unions. They live 10 yrs less than the typical person because their jobs are so difficult. All these people who claim to care about the poor, don't care at all that the working class and poor can't afford to live in New York City anymore. Why do you think so many port authority workers were living in New Jersey on 9/11. This is a self serving complaint. "OH, my underpaid maid can't afford a cab to scrub my toilet!"
I really see no reason why they couldn't do a flash one day strike to give the NYers a taste of what's to come and then as a goodwill gesture agree to work until the weather gets bearable or enought time for the general populace to think of alternatives and then go for an indefinite strike if negotiations don't get better. I think Renee in Ohio's diary makes a good point on the fat in the MTA management. What I object to is the timing of this strike. They will still have leverage because a strike at any time will inconvenience the city. Just don't go over the top by insisting on doing it now, right during the middle of the winter. MTA management may suck, but the drivers still serve the public on its own dime and the MTA employees do get slack in their work performance. It's not like they are held to private corporation standards. So they should be a little flexible with the timing.
I worked at UPS when they had that major strike around 1997. Even after the deadline expired, the unions gave extensions to find a way to keep working while negotiating.
FWIW, I do fault the MTA management primarily for this crisis. I do find the NY law over the top. You gotta let the employees strike, otherwise you give them no leverage at all. I don't see why MTA management is not running a barebones skeletal crew to transport the really desperate passengers who are willing to bear the long wait lines for a train. UPS management did that when the drivers went on strike.
Yes, and they also need the lower prices that Wal-Mart offers.
http://today.reuters.com/investing/financeArticle.aspx?type=bondsNews&storyID=URI:urn:newsml:reu ters.com:20051222:MTFH43155_2005-12-22_16-38-52_N22322324:1
Pull down the shades 'cause he's comin' Turn out the lights, 'cause he's here Running hard down the street Through the snow and the sleet On the coldest night of the year.
Beware, beware, beware, of the Naked Man.
Old Lady lean against a lamppost Starin' down at the ground on which she stands She look up and scream For in the lamplight's beam There stood the Naked Man...
He faked to the left and faked to the right. And he snatched the purse from her hand. "Someone stop me," he cried, As he faded from sight, "Won't nobody help a naked man? Won't nobody help a naked man?"
I dunno, it just seemed appropriate. Thanks, Randy.
The Taylor Law is not a good law. Like I said, restrictions on strikes by public employee unions make sense. But the Taylor Law outlaws them outright. It doesn't force the employers to hold to any timeline in negotiations, so they can stretch out negotiations as long as they want. It's unfairly skewed to the employer's side and should be reformed.
But if you really think the Taylor Law is a good law as it exists, what you're saying is that you don't believe that unionized workers should have any tools at their disposal to hold employers' feet to the fire in contract negotiations. And that would mean that you don't believe in organized labor. It's that simple.
Look, there is no way for the TWU to bring the MTA to the table. The MTA doesn't have to give them a contract. The MTA doesn't have to do dick. They can sit back, play games with the union, and try to force them into accepting an offer that is going to break the union. And if the union doesn't strike, that is exactly what is going to happen. The union will break.
When I've seen interviews with transit workers, most of them are wholeheartedly behind the strike. Others say, "I wish our leadership had stayed at the bargaining table a little longer." But they also say, "We elected them to fight for us, and they're doing what they need to do -- and we support them."
This is what organized labor is all about: putting your trust in your fellow workers to fight for all of us. Is it inconvenient for average New Yorkers? Sure. It's even more inconvenient for transit workers who are being docked 2 days' pay for each 1 day they're off the job.
They are sacrificing... for the idea that things SHOULDN'T get gradually worse and worse for each new generation of workers. Roger Toussaint said, "We will not give up our unborn." That is a noble principle, and I applaud the TWU for standing up for it.
I agree completely! The management should all be immediately replaced for giving the workers no choice but to strike!
What you really believe is that unions should not have the right to strike when their striikes could hurt the bottom line of their employers. The only citizens you are concerned about are shareholders and CEOs.
You, on the other hand, can go fuck yourself. How's that for smugness?
As an NYC resident, I support the strike but people need to be realistic about who is being impacted by it - the working class. Transit strikes are by their very nature designed to inflict pain on the middle class since they depend on it. The rich are inconvenienced, the working class hurt severly and some will not be able to pay their bills b/c of it.
Scott Shields gets it and acknowledges it. Why don't you?
You are the idiot (I dont mind returning the namecalling even if I won't initiate it in most cases) who made a mischaracterized what SensibleDemocrat was saying. And you just strike back like a rightwinger when someone points that out.
By rating and responding to people based on personal spite on several occasions, you are being more of a troll than any right winger who comes by here. Instead of the discussion being given the paramount importance, you seem to put a big deal of effort into extending personal conflicts - the hallmark of a troll. I never interrupt your discussions with my personal rants because if I see something I like in your diaries, then I will contribute to the diary in a positive way or keep quiet. What a sorry excuse for a human being you are. I cringe when I think that an idiot like you is on our side. It's time you got a life, or maybe even a job(considering you spend more time than a few of us combined on these blogs, I can't see how you can put an honest day's work in real life).
When you're dealing with a public-private partnership like the MTA, though, things get more complicated. The union doesn't have the same kind of direct political leverage over them as they would over a real public employer, and yet they're expected to abide by a law that completely undercuts members' leverage. The MTA has chosen to bargain in bad faith like any other corporate employer. The union has every right to play just as hard, in my opinion, whether the courts and statutes recognize it or not.
And, you cut verbatim what you just wrote from the other diary. I get the feeling you are acting knee jerk, and not responding to the specific crtique.
Finally, I live Brooklyn, and work in Manhattan. I am corp America as a lawyer, and I have to trek 2.5 hours each way to get to and from work when I usually only had to travel 40 minutes. I support the strike for reason I state else where. And as for that silliness about the old dying for the cold- clearly you don't live in NYC. The old and sick can use Public Access vans that go to all 5 boroughs that have not been affected by the strike. In fact, it's a better service than MTA because it's door to door. even with MTA in place they would have to trek to where ever the stations are or the bus stop is.
So how do these vans work. Do they serve all the poor and middle class sections of the city?
The FDNY has had firehouses closed all over NYC. But I guess they should just accept being downsized. After all it is just Firemen right?
The NYPD was (is?) without a contract when the mayor brought the RNC to town which forced the NYPD to work overtime and had to refuse previously authorized vacation time because they needed the workers. In an NY1 interview with Police Commissioner Ray Kelly he states that starting NYPD salaries have not been as low as they are now since 1986.
The UFT (teachers) went two and half years without a contract, until Bloomberg found it beneficial to resolve that prior the the elections this fall. link
The Uniformed EMTs and Paramedics Union has been without a contract for 40 months, and this NY Daily News article talks about the possibility of them striking.
I realize any of these groups striking has negative implications, and sucks for NYC residents like myself, but how many more public service unions does the city need to deny contracts to before we open our eyes. How long should each of these groups go or have gone without contracts hoping the city or state wakes up one morning and decides to be nice?
People ought to give those people rides. And from what I hear they are. It's immoral for management to exploit the prohibition against striking--if the service is essential then the city ought to treat the workers fairly.
Keith
Problem solved.
Thats what people that WORK outside this time of the year do.
What Tom Tomorrow has to say about people like you is all that really needs to be said.
