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Mayor Bloomberg is having a press conference on the presser right now!

NEW YORK - The city and state stepped up their pressure on striking transit workers Wednesday in hopes of forcing them back to work, and a judge said sending union leaders to jail was a "distinct possibility." State Supreme Court Justice Theodore Jones, who is hearing several legal issues related to the strike, directed attorneys from the Transport Workers Union to bring president Roger Toussaint and other top officials before the court Thursday to answer to a criminal contempt charge. He said he may sentence the union leaders to jail for refusing to end the strike, calling such a scenario...

Throw Roger from the train! Roger Toussaint, we dare you to take to the Brooklyn Bridge this morning to tell the cold, walking throngs why you chose to disrupt the lives of millions, jacked up the expenses of tens of thousands, shuttered and crimped businesses, exposed the subway system to terrorism and generally threatened the public health and welfare. It would be delicious watching you try to justify the reckless, lawless transit strike that you have inflicted on the city - assuming your fellow New Yorkers didn't hurl you over the railing into the icy waters before you got a...

You could see it in their eyes, in the set of their jaws, in their E-mails and in their letters. New Yorkers - normally good-humored in a crisis - were mad this time. "As I'm walking, I hope they are walking [Transport Workers Union leader Roger] Toussaint to jail," said Peter Johnson, 56, a Columbia College administrator trekking to work along Broadway. "The people this will hurt the most are the working poor. They can't bear another burden, especially at this festive time of the year." There was little of the camaraderie and spirit that was so evident after the...

by Mark Finkelstein December 21, 2005 - 07:02. When it comes to the Transport Workers Union strike in NYC, the Today show just can't bring itself to pronounce the 'I' word, for illegal. In contrast with his Today show appearance yesterday, this morning NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg took off the verbal gloves, repeatedly condemning the union for its illegal strike, which violates of the Taylor Law prohibiting public employees in New York from striking. Among other things, Bloomberg stated that striking union members would be fined two days pay for every day the strike lasts. But whereas Today gave sympathetic...

Don't they look like they deserve a raise?

NEW YORK-It isn't about money or pensions for Angel Ortiz. It's about the contemptous glances, angry passenger rants and abusive bosses who rack up discipline slips and are stingy about sick days."Everybody treats me like crap all the time. We're tired of being treated like we're the garbage of the city," said Ortiz, 32, standing on the Bronx-Manhattan border Tuesday with hundreds of other striking transit workers underneath an elevated rail line that had no trains.

This afternoon, Mayor Bloomberg updated everyone on how New York City is coping with the transit strike. 1010 WINS has a nice summary of it on their site. Developments today include: -NYPD working 12 hour shifts (hello overtime!) and the traffic is being handled by the police cadets -LIRR handled an extra 45,000 riders this morning -There is now shuttle service at Kew Gardens, Forrest Hills and Woodside (lots of love for far away in Queens) -The zone system for the cabs is working -175,000 calls have come into 311 since midnight Is everyone ready for the fun commute home...

NEW YORK -- A judge in New York is fining the city's transit workers' union $1 million a day for going on strike. The nation's largest mass transit system endured its first strike in a quarter-century Tuesday, stranding 7 million riders in the December cold as negotiations remained stalled. State Supreme Court Justice Theodore Jones leveled the sanction against the Transport Workers Union for violating state law by going on strike. Attorneys for the city and state had asked Jones to hit the union with a "very potent fine" for ignoring the Taylor Law. Some New York City commuters are...

A New York State judge has fined the TWU $1 million a day for calling an illegal strike, according to WCBS (NY) News. Fine starts accruing today.

I have no sympathy for the TWA, and here's my thinking: Say you're 18 years old and go to college, and say you're caucasian so you and/or your parents have to pay tuition. Four years; let's say $80,000. Say again you bust your stones through an accounting degree, take the CPA exam, and pass. Congratulations! You're now approaching average salary for a NYC transit employee. You work 60 hour weeks for years, take little vacation, contribute $80-$100/month for health care (far more once you have a family) and have no pension. Your annual raise may average 7-8%, depending on how...

For the first time since 1980, the New York City public transit system is completely shut down due to a strike. Transit Workers Union head Roger Toussaint made the announcement shortly after 3:00AM local time. In addition, many commuter railroads shuttling passengers in from the suburbs may be shut down, as sympathetic union workers refuse to cross picket lines. I moved to New York in late 1979, a few months before the last transit strike occurred. Because most New York City residents don't have cars, the preferred method of transportation for strike-stranded city-dwellers was walking. Each weekday, my father picked...

In its standoff with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the Transport Workers Union has highlighted once again its ability to upset millions of the city's subway and bus riders. It is an enduring tradition of militancy that dates to the union's creation during the Great Depression. Indeed, in New York, a city that has weathered major strikes by sanitation workers, drawbridge operators, teachers and social workers, no union seems able to unsettle residents quite like the one that moves the subways and buses. Members of T.W.U. Local 100, which represents the 33,700 transit workers whose three-year contract expired on Friday, often...

Strike Is On TWU Announces System-Wide Transit Strike, Starting Immediately December 20, 2005 # See the contingency plan The fears of countless commuters have been realized this morning, as the Transport Workers Union announced at 3 a.m. that a system-wide public transit strike will begin immediately. The announcement, made after a vote of the TWU's executive board, means that the union's 34,000 MTA employees will leave their posts at the end of their shifts, shutting down the city's subway and bus system and thwarting millions of commuters and countless tourists on the cusp of the holiday season. "Our contract expired...

by Mark Finkelstein December 20, 2005 - 07:37 Let's get one thing straight: the NYC transit strike by the Transport Workers is illegal. Even the New York Times had to acknowledge that stubborn fact: "The state's Taylor Law bars strikes by public employees and carries penalties of two days' pay for each day on strike, but the transit union decided it was worth risking the substantial fines to continue the fight for what it regards as an acceptable contract." In addition to the tremendous inconvenience the strike inflicts on the seven-million largely working-class New Yorkers who use the transit system...

1 hour to go. MTA just gave one more offer to the TWU which has rejected the offer. The Union heads are on the way to the Union hall to vote on striking.

Per Fox News

The good news is that transit workers aren't on strike this morning. The bad news is that it might not last. After an all-night bargaining session with the MTA, officials with the Transit Workers Union announced Friday morning that they would not accept the MTA's contract proposal, and instead would begin a series of strikes to put pressure on the city. TWU president Roger Toussiant said the job action would begin Friday evening with the privately-owned Jamaica and Tri-Borough bus lines, before spreading to city buses and subways. "The contract they offered would leave the next generation of transit workers...

NYC transit union authorizes subway strike if no contract deal reached next week By DESMOND BUTLER (Associated Press Writer) From Associated Press December 10, 2005 11:56 PM EST NEW YORK - New York City transit workers voted Saturday to authorize a strike that could shut down bus and subway service at the height of the holiday shopping season. Thousands of members of Transport Workers Local 100 voted unanimously to authorize their leaders to call a walkout if the union and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority can't agree on a new contract by midnight Thursday, when the current contract expires. MTA officials...

...should the strike happen, those 6,600 workers are no longer MTA employees, and one step closer to being the actual criminals so many of them seem to model themselves after. All props to train conductors and nasty, dumbass booth attendants but ultimately you're fungible, aye? If the MTA has any gumption whatsoever, they'll hold strikers to their position, which is that the MTA is not where they want to work. Best of luck, folks, finding jobs requiring you to put down the french fries and add some value to this world.