Posted on 12/20/2005 1:34:09 PM PST by ConservativeMan55
You can sample some reactions from ordinary New Yorkers on this site:
http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/rnr/119546923.html
Financial penalties against individual workers really aren't reasonable. Fire them, yes. But the two-days-pay fine for each day not worked just isn't reasonable or enforceable, and I don't believe any court will try to enforce it. If I'm an individual union worker (perish the thought!) and want to do the right thing and go back to work, what the heck am I supposed to do? Not only is crossing a picket line physically dangerous, but many of the jobs simply can't be performed unless most of the rest of the workers are also on the job. How does a subway driver 1) get hold of a train, 2) drive it when many of the mechanical systems aren't fully operational, or 3) get passengers on it when all turnstiles are chained shut? How does a bus repair person repair buses, when they're all locked up at the depots? How does a cleaning worker get access to stations or vehicles? A lot of these workers don't want to be on strike, and would work if they could, and they don't deserve to be pushed into bankruptcy or have their credit ratings ruined for years, because of what OTHER people are doing.
The local union, however, should not only be bankrupted with fines, but should also be decertified as a union. If it's not recognized as a legitimate union, it can no longer negotiate on behalf of workers. It derives its power solely from our socialist labor laws, but now that it's willfully breaking the law, it should no longer be able to simultaneously claim protection under the same legal system.
I think the most effective way of ending the strike would be to have the MTA adopt the hard-line tactics that the city of Calgary used in their labor dispute with Calgary Transit a few years back. After the workers had been out on strike for a month, the city came to the negotiating table with an offer that was worse than the one the union rejected a month earlier. And they made it clear that the city would be negotiating down with every additional week the workers were on strike.
That strike ended very quickly after that.
I'm not waiting a month! I'm in NYC, and was taking today off work for a final exam which was postponed to mid-January. So I didn't have to face the transportation nightmare today. But tomorrow, I'm most likely looking at about a 50 block hike to work. And I live in another city on weekends, and really must be there this weekend as no one else will be home to take care of the cats. Right now, Penn Station, which is really the only way out for me, is in total chaos, with thousands of people stuck outside. I THINK NJ Transit, which I take, is fully operational, but the station is a zoo, and getting to it with my 20 year old cat in tow, will be a real nightmare.
I don't think it's going to go one more than a few days, though (hopefully back to normal by Friday). The local union's national/international parent union didn't authorize the strike, asked a judge today to order the workers back to work (he did), and later directly ordered the workers back to work. So what we have at the moment is civil war within the union. I'm not sure to what extent the local is financially dependent on the parent union, but if there's any financial dependence at all, workers will have to be worried -- if the fines are imposed as ordered, the local union's bank accounts will be empty or frozen within a few days, and the workers' strike benefits will definitely not be forthcoming from the parent union. This is a really unusual situation, and not a good one for the workers or the local union leadership.
LOL!
Small, small Freepers inside. Need to talk trash to feel big.
Pitiful bunch.
bttt
TWU--New York's Dumbest.
Walking will do them some good. Then maybe they will get their heads out of their ass's.
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