Posted on 12/22/2005 4:06:07 AM PST by StatenIsland
Hey, what's the rush? Why display an ounce of concern when New Yorkers can't get to their jobs and back, the economy is hemorrhaging, taxpayers are getting slammed and 33,700 transit workers are being whacked with $14 million a day in fines and lost pay? Show the slightest inclination to settle the transit strike? Not if you are Roger Toussaint. If you're Roger Toussaint, you compare yourself to Rosa Parks, say you only want "respect," paint the Metropolitan Transportation Authority as out of touch with minorities and women, start to push inflammatory race and class buttons and claim that you had to strike because, well, Gov. Pataki, Mayor Bloomberg and MTA chairman Peter Kalikow made you.
Then, having lit the match, you stand back while City Councilman Charles Barron and the Rev. Herbert Daughtry, both black, liken Bloomberg to white segregationist Bull Connor for saying that the leadership of the Transport Workers Union, an overwhelmingly minority union, had "thuggishly turned their backs on New York City." Pungent, yes. Racist, no.
Then, if you're Toussaint, you announce that the TWU will return to work while negotiations continue if the MTA gives up on asking for pension reform. Which is perhaps Toussaint's most cynical position. Why? Because all of a sudden he's willing to let the no-contract-no-work TWU run the buses and trains without a deal in hand - just as he could have yesterday and the day before, thus demonstrating how needless this strike has been.
"Irrational" is too mild a word to describe Toussaint's leadership of the TWU. If you can, put aside the damage he is inflicting on the city and consider the severe privations he is imposing on his own members. Their wallets are being tapped an average of more than $400 a day because Toussaint insists on violating the Taylor Law. And not to help them out in the least.
He is using his members now purely as cannon fodder in fighting the MTA's effort to require newly hired transit workers, and only newly hired transit workers, to contribute a larger amount to their pensions than the present workers do. The current contribution is 2% of salary; in its last proposal the MTA sought 6% from employees who take jobs from here on out.
Today's transit workers have no stake in the matter. Their pension rights are guaranteed by the state Constitution and cannot be changed, yet they are shelling out at a bankruptcy-inducing rate of $2,000 a week because Toussaint, unconscionably, led them off the job. Had he stayed at the table and simply rejected the MTA's proposal, he would have preserved their bank accounts and been in position to win them - and new workers - even larger wage hikes than offered by Kalikow.
But that didn't happen. Toussaint refused the MTA's offer to pay bigger increases if the TWU made productivity savings. And so now he and other public labor leaders have framed the strike as a struggle for the ages over pensions. That's an excellent battle to have, because the soaring cost of pensions that are far more generous than any in the private sector is crushing the MTA, the state and local governments across New York. But there's just no way to hash over the issues while Toussaint continues to hold New York hostage. Nor, as Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg have made clear, can he be allowed to gain by breaking the law. Stop walking and start talking, Mr. Toussaint, for the good of New York and of your members.
There are also indications that hundreds, if not a thousand or more, have returned to work. The MTA has been running TV ads appealing directly to workers.
As of this writing, there are reports that the two sides are meeting face-to-face.
With respect to firings, the NYDN had this to say:
Wanna just fire them? That's a rail tough job
It has become an angry refrain as New Yorkers walk, bike and hitch their way through the cold with the striking MTA workers in mind: "Why don't they just fire them all?"
According to the Taylor Law, which outlaws strikes, a striking worker can in fact lose his job.
But that doesn't make mass firings practical, according to Jerome Lefkowitz, an architect of the law.
Everyone fired for striking could ask for an individual hearing on his or her dismissal: "It would be a very complicated and expensive process," Lefkowitz said.
There's also the obvious problem of quickly finding, training and dispatching people to replace the 33,700 strikers.
Haste in replacing striking workers has contributed to tragedy in the past: A 1918 transit strike, during which a dispatcher was sent to fill in for a motorman, ended in the horrific Malbone St. wreck, which killed nearly 100 people in Brooklyn.
Then there's politics.
Asked yesterday whether either union honchos or striking workers should be fired, Gov. Pataki sidestepped the question entirely.
"That's for the MTA and the lawyers to look at. That's for the court," he said.
While some call on Pataki to fire the strikers, as President Ronald Reagan did to striking air-traffic controllers in 1981, Doug Muzzio of the Baruch College School of Public Affairs said it could hurt him.
"Just the public safety issues - he could be seen as really irresponsible here," Muzzio said. "[And] if he fires them, how long does it take to certify and train [new] people?"
I got an idea, give them the contract they asked for... just debit the half-billion or so this strike has cost the city so far... and make it contingent on getting rid of the union's leadership.
I have in mind a better and quicker way to get rid of the union leadership. . .
Fire the bums now. You'll have people lining up for these jobs inside of 4 hours.
L
"Wow, they have to go all the way back to 1918 to find a transit tragedy to bring up."
Isn't that interesting? And things are a vastly more automated than they were then....
It would be a nice change of pace, if it accomplishes nothing else.
The governor should fire them all. Where is Reagon when you need him. No one left here but cowardly regpublicans that run from the battle. It was a great nation before the socialists ran it into the ground.
The controller's strike was very different than the transit workers strike. Unlike the MTA, the FAA was not required to employ only union labor. Therefore, many controllers stayed on the job and made small fortunes in overtime pay when the union struck. Furthermore, many striking controllers heeded Reagan's warning and went back to work before the hammer fell. As a result, there were enough controllers to run the show while new ones were being trained.
Bloomberg and Pitaki should give striking workers a back to work ultimatum. If they fail to heed the warning, then fire the ones who went on strike first- the two bus lines- and say that others will be fired in the order in which they left the job. Those who return will not be fined for striking, and, as a gesture, may get a bonus to help (not completely) offset any lost wages because of the union's illegal strike. That should bring back enough workers to run enough of the system to make life in NYC bearable while new hires are trained.
It makes for some interesting reading.
Union public workers don't know how good they have it...
A co-worker of mine described what he called the perfect job action for transit workers. He experienced this while on a business trip to Seoul, South Korea a few years back. The Seoul transit workers were involved in a labor dispute with their management, so they went "on strike." Maybe you have to be Asian to think this way, but it was the most simple and effective job action I've ever heard of. They showed up for work every day during their "strike" and performed their job functions as if it were any ordinary day . . . the trains and buses ran in a timely, efficient, manner.
The one thing they didn't do was collect any fares on the buses and trains.
This was a perfect job action for the union, because it accomplished three things that are almost impossible to do simultaneously in a public sector strike:
1. There was no disruption in the lives of the general public;
2. The financial cost to the transit system was devastating;
3. Public support for the union was nearly unanimous, since the public was actually better off from a financial standpoint when the union was "on strike" than they were under normal conditions.
I hope all the small business people of NYC send their lump of coal to the White House. What is the point of being President if you don't take action? He gets it over security but not business? Go figure.
Could somebody help me understand this. This strike is against the law. That makes it a crime! The leaders of this organization are thus committing a crime. Doesn't this make it a criminal organization just like the "Mafia". But in this case no one is getting arrested. Instead, there's talk about both sides , the criminals and the government officials, getting together to iron out a "deal". How nice. So maybe these same officials should get together with the "Mafia" Dons and work out a "deal" on the drug problem. Maybe they could agree to allow crack sales on even numbered days of the month! Talk about absurd!!!
And even if the President did have the authority to get involved, I don't see why he ought to care about the inconvenience of 7 million transit riders who come from three states (New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut) that have combined to give ZERO electoral votes to Republican presidential candidates since 1988. The fact that these 7 million people are represented almost entirely by Democrats in the House, and by a total of 6 Democrats and 0 Republicans in the Senate, tells me that nobody in Washington ought to give a sh!t about the situation at all.
In other words, F#%& 'EM ALL.
Welcome to New York City, where a union that shuts down the transit system and causes untold financial devastation in the city is treated less seriously than a guy smoking in a bar.
That kind of rationale is ludicrous. Are you suggesting that if I am driving from New Jersey to Ohio on a business trip, the Federal government ought to have jurisdiction over a minor construction project if it blocks a one-block stretch of a local street at the end of my trip -- since it affects my "interstate commerce?"
I think making comments on the Free Republic is a great thing; but that you would argue that the government does not have a right under the interstate commerce clause of the CONSTITUTION shows you are not getting all the facts available to you. The transportation of people, products and the military is why thereare subsides of roads, airports, and railroads. Since the federal government pays for the railroads they have a right and a responsibility to the citizens of the states to ensure that the use is not hindered by one state to the detrement of another.
"In other words, F#%& 'EM ALL."
But Alberta's Child, I'm one of them. Kindly soothe my wounded feelings by excluding me from your epithet.
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