MTA Strike [Archive] - Wired New York Forum

krulltime

December 13th, 2005, 01:41 AM

Transit Strike Would Mean Four to a Car

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and THOMAS J. LUECK
December 13, 2005

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, warning that a transit strike would seriously hurt the city's economy, announced yesterday that only cars with at least four people would be allowed to enter Manhattan south of 96th Street on weekday mornings if bus and subway workers walk off the job on Friday.

Starting times for city schools would be delayed by two hours to allow children time to get to school, and several streets, including much of Fifth and Madison Avenues, would be closed to all but emergency vehicles, according to an affidavit the city filed in court yesterday.

Wading forcefully into the labor dispute, Mr. Bloomberg said he hoped that a walkout would be averted and urged transit workers to follow the example of many municipal unions by exchanging productivity increases for bigger raises.

"A strike would not be good for the city, a strike would not be good for the union," Mr. Bloomberg said during an appearance in Manhattan. "It will cost an enormous amount of money in economic activity. There will be a lot of people who would lose their jobs during a strike."

In court papers filed in support of an injunction against a strike, slowdown or sickout, the Bloomberg administration estimated that the city's businesses would lose $440 million to $660 million per day in business activity during a transit strike.

Roger Toussaint, president of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, representing 33,700 subway and bus workers, said the mayor should not interfere in his union's talks with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, a state-controlled agency.

"Mayor Bloomberg is not part of these negotiations, and it should stay that way," Mr. Toussaint said as he entered the Grand Hyatt hotel for another negotiating session.

Last night, the authority altered its earlier proposal of a 3 percent increase one year and 2 percent the second, proposing instead a 27-month contract with a wage increase of 3 percent in the first year and another 3 percent effective March 16, 2007. In addition, instead of linking the second year of wage increases to reductions in sick leave use, as it proposed last week, it would impose new restrictions on sick leave unless workers reduce their use of sick leave to 2002 levels. The union did not immediately respond to the offer.

Earlier in the evening, Mr. Toussaint had restated his demand for an 8 percent wage increase in each of the next three years.

Local 100 has threatened to shut down the transit system if the two sides fail to reach a settlement by 12:01 a.m. Friday, when its contract expires.

"I'd still say there is a 50-50 possibility" of a strike, Mr. Toussaint said, "but there is still plenty of time to work things out."

In an appearance at Parsons the New School for Design, Mr. Bloomberg told reporters that the city would be firm in barring cars with fewer than four people from entering Manhattan south of 96th Street from 5 to 11 a.m. weekdays. He said the city had not completed enforcement details. "When we say cars coming in, we mean every car," he said. "One of the things we learned out of 9/11 was if you start making exceptions, it becomes unfair and unenforceable. And you're going to have four in a car the same way I'm going to have to."

After 9/11, cars carrying only one person were barred from entering Midtown or Lower Manhattan during weekday mornings to ease traffic jams caused by security checkpoints. The next year, when negotiations over the previous transit contract stalled, the city proposed the same ban on cars with fewer than four occupants, but it was not imposed.

Mr. Bloomberg said taxis would be allowed to carry multiple fares during a strike. He also urged New Yorkers who live far from their place of work to arrange to sleep closer.

"I would try to find somebody that's a friend that will let you use their couch," he said. "That would be the easiest thing to do."

As outlined in the affidavit, the contingency plan calls for closing a number of streets to all but emergency vehicles, including Fifth and Madison Avenues from 23rd to 96th Streets as well as 26th, 29th, 49th and 50th Streets from 1st to 12th Avenues. In Lower Manhattan, portions of Nassau, Rector and Vesey Streets and Maiden Lane would be closed.

Giving the two sides negotiating advice, Mr. Bloomberg said: "We've managed to come to good settlements with many of the city's unions based on productivity savings that got them significant increases in their compensation. I see no reason why the union and the M.T.A. couldn't do exactly the same thing."

As the deadline approaches, some commuter lines are making emergency plans. For example, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey plans to run PATH trains from the World Trade Center stop to 33rd Street in Midtown.

Although city schools would open later than usual, dismissal times would remain the same, the affidavit said.

Keith Kalb, a spokesman for Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein, said all school employees were expected to work.

"The school buses will continue to run, we will have supplies of food and fuel," he said. "We have plans to notify parents should circumstances change."

Randi Weingarten, president of the teachers' union, the United Federation of Teachers, criticized the chancellor's decision. "If there's a strike on Friday, they should close the schools," she said. "It's going to be chaos."

The union and the transportation authority are at loggerheads over wages and the authority's demand for a less generous pension and health plan for new workers. Union members' base pay averages $47,000 a year.

The authority says it needs concessions because it faces a $1 billion deficit beginning in 2009. The union insists that no concessions are warranted because the authority has a $1 billion surplus this year.

Yesterday, Justice Theodore T. Jones Jr. of State Supreme Court in Brooklyn scheduled a hearing for 10 a.m. today on a motion by lawyers for the state seeking a preliminary injunction against a strike or any attempt to disrupt transit service.

Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's office is seeking the injunction under the Taylor Law, which prohibits strikes by public employees. Lawyers for the city and the authority joined his effort.

Michael A. Cardozo, the city's corporation counsel, said the injunction was being sought to make it clear that "severe consequences would follow" if the transit workers went on strike.

Joseph F. Bruno, the city's commissioner of emergency management, said that in addition to business losses in the event of a strike, the city would lose $8 million to $12 million per day in tax revenue and would incur $10.1 million a day for police overtime. Separately, City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. estimated that the city would suffer $1.6 billion in economic losses during the first week of a strike.

Outside the courtroom, Arthur Z. Schwartz, a lawyer for the transit workers, said the attorney general should not be seeking an injunction until a strike was under way or imminent. He said there was no evidence that a walkout was imminent.

Mr. Toussaint said he was also concerned about the economic losses: "That would be even more reason to resolve this contract."

Preliminary injunctions or temporary restraining orders have been issued routinely during previous transit negotiations even though the Taylor Law imposes stiff financial penalties on striking workers.

Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

Ninjahedge

December 13th, 2005, 10:01 AM

Cost of living increase Ninja. If you don't get at lease 2-3% a year, you should look elsewhere, as your actual salary (adjusted for inflation) is decreasing. That said, 24% over three years is asinine hyperbole.

I already addressed that. Why are they getting a raise OVER that when they are not providing anything more after a certain time? There is a limit to how productive an MTA worker can be. They cannot drive two trains, etc.

How is it fair in our society that the same service can be charged more for, at the same skill level, just because of the age of the employee?

I personally think the union is completely out of line in rejecting MTA proposals that employees pay a portion of healthcare and that retirement age be increased to 62. They do not deserve benefits that are not typically available in the private sector. I don't see anything justifying extra benefits as provided to military employees.

This is the thing that gets me. I know that they deserve to be paid, but when you look at government benefits such as retirement pensions and health care, and then compare that to the private sector you get a better idea of what is up. It is basically just another form of social security.

And the fact that they can wage a walkout that hurts other people? Screw that! Very frustrating.

All they are doing is hastening the implimentation of the automated systems.

lofter1

December 13th, 2005, 10:18 AM

And the fact that they can wage a walkout that hurts other people?
Isn't a walkout illegal?

Wonder if Bloomberg will pull a Reagan by firing all the employees who walk (ala Air Traffic Controllers back in '81) ?

TomAuch

December 13th, 2005, 10:53 AM

Isn't a walkout illegal?

Wonder if Bloomberg will pull a Reagan by firing all the employees who walk (ala Air Traffic Controllers back in '81) ?

That wouldn't surprise me, considering Bloomberg is no longer up for re-election and can't run for a third term. Also, isn't that Pataki's job, since isn't the MTA is a state agency?
...Anyway, I think that both sides are making unreasonable demands, and I really hope that they do not strike. A city of 8 million people will NOT do well if this occurs at the end of the week.

lofter1

December 13th, 2005, 11:10 AM

I really hope that they do not strike. A city of 8 million people will NOT do well if this occurs at the end of the week.
Especially with the temperature in the 20's ... brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

ZippyTheChimp

December 13th, 2005, 11:28 AM

The 11 day subway and bus strike in April, 1980 was the biggest factor in women no longer commuting to work in high-heels, and the explosion of the athletic-shoe market.

Ninjahedge

December 13th, 2005, 11:50 AM

Isn't a walkout illegal?

Wonder if Bloomberg will pull a Reagan by firing all the employees who walk (ala Air Traffic Controllers back in '81) ?

Yep, but that only gets a daily fine to the labor unions. If they are ready to put up with that, they can afford a few days of hell for the city.

One stupid thing, announcing that they may go on strike the day it runs out. On a Friday.

Why don't they just wait to go on strike at Christmas! i am sure that will REALLY hurt NYC and get them what they want!!!

Oh, this also reminds me of the sanitation workers strike in the summer about 7 years ago. That (literally) stank.

But then you get things like teachers strikes, which do hurt the people, but coming from people that have not gotten anything good in a long time!

Lumping all unions together as if they all stand for the same thing and have the same values to society is wrong, but that is how we think about things as humans. If it is a Union, it must be the same no matter who they represent!

ryan

December 13th, 2005, 11:57 AM

I already addressed that.
I apologize, you're right. Has anyone heard the Unions's logic behind the 24% pay increase? Have they gone a few years without a cost of living increase? Otherwise, I have to agree with Ninja that any job has a salary cap. In the real world supply and demand sets that price, so again, why should the MTA be treated better than they would be in the private sector?

stache

December 13th, 2005, 02:35 PM

I have a feeling it would wind up being more than 24% as the 8% would more than likely be compounded annually. I also think they want to strike on Friday as a slap in the face for the current weekend discounts.

ryan

December 13th, 2005, 03:18 PM

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/logoprinter.gif (http://www.nytimes.com/)
December 13, 2005
The Man in the Middle

By SEWELL CHAN (http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=bylL&v1=SEWELL%20CHAN&fdq=19960101&td=sysdate&sort=newest&ac=SEWELL%20CHAN&inline=nyt-per)
His is the voice you hear over the loudspeaker, if it is working. His is the blue uniform you look for when the subway pulls into the station if you are confused about which train to take. His is the head that pops out of the conductor's cab, scanning the length of the platform as the train pulls out.
William Bailon, 28, is a conductor on the F, G and R lines and can list all their stations from memory, even while half asleep, but he is more excited when he tells you about his wife, Sandra, a legal secretary a few credits shy of her bachelor's degree; their two children, Adalee, 8, and Willie, 4; and the challenge of paying nearly $4,000 a year in Catholic school tuitions.

To speak to Mr. Bailon is to glimpse through the eyes of one subway conductor the concerns of 33,700 union members at New York City Transit, one of the city's largest civil-service work forces. Those concerns, while varying somewhat from worker to worker, share an essential core of issues like wages, health care and pensions and could determine whether the busiest transit system in the nation is shut down by a strike after the current three-year contract runs out Friday at 12:01 a.m.

The rising cost of living is the dominant concern for Mr. Bailon, who considers himself fortunate because his wife's family owns a six-unit building in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, allowing the couple to pay just $600 a month for their cramped two-bedroom apartment. "It's so expensive to live in New York," he said. "Everything is going up: the rent, the gas, the milk."

A Brooklyn native and a high school graduate, Mr. Bailon was hired in 2001 amid changes that have transformed the transit work force in recent decades: the shift from Irish and other European groups to blacks and Latinos, diminished opportunities for advancement in a bureaucracy that once routinely granted promotions chiefly by seniority, and growing anxiety as managers seek to eliminate the jobs of many of the 2,700 conductors and 3,300 station agents.

Mr. Bailon supports but is not active in his union, Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, and he did not attend the union's strike-authorization vote on Saturday because he was working. A Democrat, he did not bother to vote in the mayoral election. Most of what he knows about the Metropolitan Transportation Authority comes from tabloid newspapers left behind on the trains.

Mr. Bailon's base pay is $22.54 an hour, or about $47,000 a year. With overtime, he expects to make about $54,000 this year before taxes. More than a third of his paycheck goes to taxes, a pension contribution, union dues and a health-care co-payment.

New York City Transit pays for a standard health benefit package. Under a preferred-provider organization, G.H.I., Mr. Bailon pays a $15 co-payment for office visits and diagnostic tests. (Workers who select a health-maintenance organization generally have no co-payment.) He also pays $26.34 every two weeks for coverage for his wife, who is 27, and the two children.

Since 1994, nearly all transit workers with 25 years of experience have been eligible to collect a pension equal to half their pay at age 55. Mr. Bailon, who started at age 23, would be 48 after 25 years' service, and would have to wait 7 years for his pension. Sometimes, he thinks about trying to become a police officer. "It would mean taking a big pay cut," at least at first, he said.

He does not want to go on strike, but said, "If we have to, we will."
He could be affected if the authority expands one-person train operation, a disputed program that began in 1996. On one-person trains there is no conductor, only an operator who opens and shuts the doors and makes announcements. Mr. Bailon works on the G line every Thursday and Friday, 7:48 a.m. to 4:34 p.m. - a line the authority wants to make conductorless at all times.

He also has heard about the authority's proposal to have conductors stay on the train but leave their booths and instead walk through the cars, answering questions from passengers and looking for suspicious activity. He does not like the idea.

Mr. Bailon's mother came to New York from Puerto Rico, his father from Ecuador. After graduating from high school, he worked for two years for a livery car company, then took an $11-an-hour job with an air-conditioning equipment supplier.

In June 1999, he paid a $10 application fee and took a conductor's test, a civil service exam. The requirements included a high school diploma and passing a physical.

He did not get called back until early 2001. By that point, he had also taken the exam to become a police officer. Because he lacked enough college credits, he was offered a job as a school safety officer, which paid less than the starting pay for a conductor, around $14 an hour.

So, on April 16, 2001, he joined the authority and began conductor school, learning how circuit breakers work, what to do if a train door is jammed, and how to make a proper announcement. He learned the codes train crews use to summon assistance: 12-2 for smoke or fire, 12-6 for a derailment, 12-8 for an armed passenger, 12-9 for a body under the train, 12-11 for serious vandalism. He received on-the-job instruction at the Coney Island train yard.

He was assigned to the B Division, which includes all the train lines designated by a letter, except for the 42nd Street shuttle. His first assignment was as an "extra-extra," who floats among train lines and shifts.

Most hourly transit workers select their assignments about every six months, based on seniority. The most desirable assignments include a Saturday or Sunday as one of the two regular, consecutive days off.
Mr. Bailon's current assignment involves "R.D.O. relief," or filling in for colleagues during their regular days off.

Of New York City Transit's 48,000 employees, 70 percent are black, Hispanic, Asian-American or Native American and 17 percent are women. While Local 100 is the largest union, other unions represent employees like bus workers in Queens and Staten Island and engineers.

Asked to assess the job, Mr. Bailon said: "It makes your day go by fast. You don't have a boss right over you, looking every step of the way at what you're doing. You have time to yourself on the train."

The job can also be tedious, so Mr. Bailon has considered taking a test to become a train operator. "It can be boring sometimes," he said. "It's very repetitious: making announcements, turning keys, opening the doors. Every day for 25 years? That gets tiring. Maybe as a train operator it would be a little different."

Copyright 2005 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html)The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

ryan

December 13th, 2005, 03:22 PM

This is ridiculously cheap healthcare.

czsz

December 15th, 2005, 01:03 AM

This week would seem like a good time to invest in a bicycle, were there not a freezing rain storm coming Thursday night / Friday morning. Delightful.

Maybe we'll all be skating around? Envying the Lincoln Townsleighs on the UES?

krulltime

December 15th, 2005, 03:22 AM

I cant believe I will have to walk to work with this cold! I have to walk about 33 blocks. Oh well... lets hope there is no strike.

krulltime

December 15th, 2005, 03:23 AM

The 1980 Transit Strike:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/12/14/nyregion/14cnd-strike_1980_lg.jpg
During the city's last transit strike, in 1980, pedestrians and bicyclists trekked across the Brooklyn Bridge.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/12/14/nyregion/15strike.3.jpg
Joseph K. Keegan, a concourse transit officer at the 42nd Street station, stands near a closed concession.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/12/14/nyregion/15strike.4.jpg
Larry Reilly, president of Transportation Alternatives, directed bicycle traffic on 34th Street.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/12/14/nyregion/15strike.6.jpg
A visitor from Pennsylvania hails a cab at 33rd Street
and 8th Avenue.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/12/14/nyregion/15strike.5.jpg
Commuters walking on the Queensboro Bridge.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/12/14/nyregion/15strike.2.jpg
Mayor Edward I. Koch joined pedestrians on the Brooklyn Bridge in the 1980
strike, a gesture that Mr. Bloomberg said he would emulate.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/12/14/nyregion/15strike.1.jpg
An aerial view of the Brooklyn Bridge with commuters
walking during the 1980 transit strike.

Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

krulltime

December 15th, 2005, 03:26 AM

As Negotiations Continue, City Prepares for Transit Strike

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/12/14/nyregion/14strike_span.jpg
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg outlined the city's plans in case of a transit strike Wednesday at City Hall.

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and JIM RUTENBERG
Published: December 15, 2005

With a contract deadline just after midnight tonight, representatives of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the transit workers' union met intermittently yesterday to stave off a strike as the agency's top negotiator warned that "we are not in a good place."

Although there was some small movement yesterday on the key issue of wages, the negotiator, Gary J. Dellaverson, said: "We should be closer now. There should be more progress, and I can't stand here and say that I'm comfortable with the negotiations where they stand at this instant."

Then he added, "I still remain hopeful."

He spoke just moments after Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced a comprehensive emergency plan to contend with a walkout. The plan would increase ferry service, restrict entry to much of Manhattan to high-occupancy vehicles, clear several major thoroughfares including Fifth Avenue of nearly all traffic but buses and emergency vehicles, and allow groups of riders to haggle with cabbies.

The union originally called for 8 percent annual raises, but late in the day it indicated that it would accept smaller increases if the authority agreed to decrease disciplinary actions against employees by 25 percent. The union did not say how much it was willing to trim its demand.

The day of stop-and-start negotiations was punctuated by the union's sharp criticism of the transportation authority, inconclusive court dealings, and last-minute efforts by suburban railroads to put their own emergency plans in place.

A strike by Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, which represents 33,700 subway and bus workers, would begin at 12:01 a.m. tomorrow. Walkouts by public employees are illegal under state law.

Besides wages, the two sides disagree over pensions, health insurance and safety. Mr. Dellaverson hinted that the authority's chairman, Peter S. Kalikow, might join the talks today; he did so at the last minute three years ago to reach a settlement.

Roger Toussaint, the president of Local 100, said in an interview last night that the authority was showing little flexibility and was forcing his union's back to the wall. He also denounced Mr. Bloomberg's efforts, including a lawsuit seeking huge fines, intended to pressure the union not to strike. He said the mayor had so angered union members that he made a strike more likely.

"He's gone way beyond the pale," he said. "It's Giuliani-like. It has all the earmarks of bullying, something that transit workers do not react well to." He said the chances of a walkout were 50-50.

"I have said that a settlement won't come from courts, injunctions or intimidation, " Mr. Toussaint said. "While we of course are mindful of the legal penalties our members face, we will not buckle in the face of these threats."

Later, after four and a half hours of off-again, on-again talks, the two sides broke for the night at 11 p.m. The union officials said the tone had improved slightly, because Lawrence G. Reuter, the president of New York City Transit, had joined the talks for the first time. Mr. Reuter pressed the union to set individual deadlines today for settling specific issues.

The city's emergency plan indicated how seriously the mayor is taking the possibility of a strike and how crippling officials believe a subway and bus stoppage would be for riders and the city's economy at the height of the holiday shopping season. "A strike would be more than just illegal and inconvenient," Mr. Bloomberg said. "It will threaten public safety and severely disrupt our city and its economy."

"There would be no winners in a strike," the mayor said. "And I speak for every New Yorker when I urge the T.W.U. to resolve the contract at the bargaining table."

Gov. George E. Pataki, before leaving for New Hampshire, made his most forceful comments yet to discourage a strike, warning of "dire consequences" and telling the union: "Don't even threaten a strike."

Arthur Z. Schwartz, a lawyer for the union, said the two sides were supposed to attend a Brooklyn court hearing on the city's request for fines; the city asked that on the first day, the union be fined $1 million and individual workers $25,000, and that the fines be doubled each successive day.

Mr. Schwartz said he was told that no hearing was warranted because the city corporation counsel's office, which filed the lawsuit on Tuesday, had not supplied the papers the judge needed to decide the matter.

"What happened yesterday in the filing of that lawsuit is simply an effort by the mayor and an effort by the corporation counsel to interfere with negotiations to try to intimidate the members of Local 100," Mr. Schwartz said. "It is an utterly baseless lawsuit designed only to gather headlines."

Michael A. Cardozo, the corporation counsel, said the city intended to go ahead with the suit, but was waiting to see the union's next moves.

"Our lawsuit is designed to protect the security of the city and to recover damages that the city would suffer in the event there is a strike," he said.

In a separate lawsuit, the state was granted an injunction on Tuesday barring a transit strike or slowdown.

Top negotiators from the two sides have bargained little in recent days - three hours on Monday and 75 minutes on Tuesday. Mr. Dellaverson said he was sure the pace would pick up.

"Have we been fully engaged? Yes," Mr. Dellaverson said. "Have there been enough meetings to adequately bridge the gap? No."

Going into yesterday, the authority had offered two raises of 3 percent in a 27-month contract. On pensions, the authority wants to raise the retirement age for newly hired employees to 62 after 30 years of service, while the union wants to lower it to age 50 after 20 years of service. At present, transit workers can retire at age 55 after 25 years of work, with a pension equal to half their annual pay; the average is $55,000, including overtime.

Many transit workers have said the authority's offer barely matches inflation in a year that the authority had a $1 billion surplus. The authority counters that it will have a $800 million deficit beginning in 2008. The authority's board voted yesterday to spend much of that surplus, angering the union because it allocated none of the surplus to wages.

Mr. Dellaverson said that the union's proposal, with its lower pension age, 8 percent raises, and improved health coverage, would cost the authority $550 million extra a year.

"The M.T.A. proposal is targeted at those long-term challenges that we and other employers are confronting," Mr. Dellaverson said. "It would be easy but wrong to ignore that."

Criticizing the authority's demand for concessions on pensions, Mr. Toussaint said, " The M.T.A. is misplaced to believe that the T.W.U. will be responsible for a historic decline or reversal for the labor movement with respect to pensions."

Complicating the talks, the union has threatened to strike unless the authority also reaches a contract for 2,200 workers at five private bus lines that the authority is taking over. Those workers have been without a contract for nearly three years.

With no control over the M.T.A., a state entity, the city can do little more than wait and plan for the worst, Mr. Bloomberg acknowledged. The city's plan was largely devised to reduce car traffic as much as possible through extensive car pooling, ride sharing, walking or bicycling.

Mr. Bloomberg said the city would close several major Midtown streets to all but emergency vehicles, private buses, commuter vans and motorcycles during workdays and would shut approaches to Manhattan south of 96th Street to all cars carrying fewer than four people during the morning rush. Car-pooling sites would be set up to allow drivers to pick up passengers to meet the limit. Taxicabs will be allowed to carry multiple fares, and will be able to charge based on a zone system. Cabdrivers will be allowed to charge up to $10 to start and up to $5 for each zone covered during the trip.

But the mayor said the best bet was to work from home if possible and, if not, to ride a bike or walk.

"All of us should be prepared to deal with significant crowding and delays, and all of us should do our best to be patient and courteous," he said. "By working together and looking out for each other we'll be able to weather the storm."

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/12/14/nyregion/14strike.jpg
Roger Toussaint, president of
Local 100 of the Transport
Workers Union, tore up a copy of a
city lawsuit seeking stiff fines.

Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

lofter1

December 15th, 2005, 09:01 AM

I belong to a number of unions; despite a lack of a finalized new contract I and my fellow union members have often continued to work when contracts expired. Once the new contract is ironed out the pay / benefits are retro-active, so things work out in the long run. Strikes (from my personal experience) in this day and age really offer no solution to workers, as time of wages lost are never made up. As a strategy the threat of strike / walk out is invaluable, but the choice to actually strike must be very well considered.

I believe and support unions, but for the TWU to walk on day one is a huge disservice to the public -- the people they serve and who pay their salaries.

While the MTA must share some blame in how this is playing out I have noticed slow-downs in subway service throughout this week.

A walk-out / slow-down could prove to be a huge PR / strategic mistake on the part of the TWU.

Finally, who is the brilliant gang of mediators / negotiators who allowed a contract to have an end date of mid-December? That just creates a recipe for disaster, as we're seeing played out now.

Ninjahedge

December 15th, 2005, 10:04 AM

"I have said that a settlement won't come from courts, injunctions or intimidation, " Mr. Toussaint said.

Pardon me, but isn't the threat of a strike INTIMIDATION?

The union is looking for someone to blame the strike on so they do not bear the brunt of public distain. But i don't think they are in much of a position to avoid that, considering the individual mentioned in the other piece earning $44K a year after only a few years on the job was earning more than I was after 2 years as an engineer with a meritous Ivy League graduate degree! (It is also higher than the average in the profession for that time... so...)

I think the MTA workers union is only hastening their own demise and the increased push for automated train systems.

If I were them, I would look for a way to guarantee tenure for those currently working rather than quibbling about raises that few can see the merit in.

ryan

December 15th, 2005, 12:48 PM

I support unions when they protect workers' rights and working conditions (I think there's a lot of merit to the complaints of terrible, unsanitary conditions for MTA workers. The budget surplus should absolutely have been spent on upgrading stations - including MTA workers' areas - and not pissed away on the meaningless "holiday bonus" pr gimmick). However, as best I can tell in this case, the union is leveraging the strike (threat or reality) just to horn in on the budget surplus. Seems like simple greed. I haven't read any justification for the MTA workers demanding free benefits, lowered retirement ages and fairytale raises aside from they simply think they should have them.

They deserve good pay and benefits, not extraordinary, better-than-the-private-sector pay and benefits. If I have to walk to midtown from Brooklyn in freezing rain tomorrow I'm going to tell off any picketing MTA worker I see. (and I'm usually just about socialist on these issues)

lofter1

December 15th, 2005, 09:47 PM

If THIS \/ happens ... omg:

35 pct of cabbies may stay home for transit strike

December 15, 2005

http://www.newyorkology.com/archives/2005/12/35_pct_of_cabbi.html

If there is a subway and bus strike in New York City on Friday, about 35 percent of the city's taxi drivers may also stay home rather than deal with the stress and new, complicated fare system, the director of the Taxi Workers Alliance told NewYorkology.

Bhairavi Desai said her organization, which represents about 7,000 of the city's 12,787 licensed cabbies, is encouraging drivers not to work during a strike in part because they could ultimately lose their operating licenses if they charge the wrong fares under the city's Strike Contingency Plan (http://nyc.gov/html/transitinfo/html/home.shtml) announced Wednesday.

"It's going to be incredibly stressful," she said. "And at a time of utter chaos, they've come up with this zone system" that neither passengers nor drivers are likely to easily understand.

Instead of a regular metered-fare, the zone system (http://nyc.gov/html/transitinfo/pdfs/Taxi_Zones_20051214.pdf), created by the city without input from the Taxi Workers Alliance, would charge each passenger $10 initially and $5 each time the cab passes into a new zone during the trip. Cabbies would also be allowed to pick up multiple passengers along the way.

stache

December 16th, 2005, 03:04 AM

Not pretty!

Ninjahedge

December 16th, 2005, 09:52 AM

News so far:

Queens bus lines (private lines being aquired by the MTA) will be first. Nice of them to leave people stranded at work, eh?

Butt munchers.

stache

December 16th, 2005, 10:38 AM

Looks like we have a reprieve for the most part untill late Monday night. Yay for me as I have to go to 125th St. Monday. :)

ZippyTheChimp

December 18th, 2005, 07:58 AM

December 18, 2005

Transit Union Tries New Tack on Pensions

By SEWELL CHAN and STEVEN GREENHOUSE

In a move that could alter the shape of its deadlocked contract negotiations, the transit workers' union intends to file a complaint with a state labor board today, asserting that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority cannot legally insist that the union accept less generous pensions for future subway and bus workers.

The union, Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, said yesterday that it would ask the state's Public Employment Relations Board to seek a court order barring the authority from making pension demands part of its final offer for a new contract. The authority, in response, dismissed the legal action as a public-relations ploy and asserted that both sides had traditionally discussed pensions in their contract talks.

Neither side moved from its position yesterday, although top negotiators met for about four hours before taking an afternoon recess. Talks resumed and then recessed once again about 11 p.m.

If the state board were to rule in the union's favor on the pension issue - an outcome the authority insisted is doubtful - it could compel the authority to drop its demand for a worse pension plan for future transit workers. That demand, both sides say, is the main obstacle to a settlement.

The dispute added a new wrinkle to the brinkmanship that has characterized the last several days. The authority has said that it has made its final offer. The union has set a new strike deadline of 12:01 a.m. Tuesday for the whole transit system and another for 12:01 a.m. tomorrow at two private bus companies in Queens that are being transferred to the authority's control. Union officials said yesterday that they had asked the authority to put its best and final offer on the table by 9 p.m. Monday so the union's executive board would have time to consider it before the Tuesday deadline.

The union's president, Roger Toussaint, and the authority's chairman, Peter S. Kalikow, did not attend the talks yesterday, held at the Grand Hyatt hotel. Each side offered competing interpretations of the day's events to the journalists who have transformed hotel meeting rooms into a round-the-clock encampment.

At 3:10 p.m., the authority's chief negotiator, Gary J. Dellaverson, said he was optimistic. "We're negotiating," he said. "The talks have not broken off. At this stage of the game, I would say talking is progress."

Three hours later, Ed Watt, the union's secretary-treasurer, was less sanguine during a brief appearance. "Both sides are in what seem to be intractable positions," he said. "As a result, these negotiations have only been exploratory and, again, there has been no progress."

A lawyer for the union, Walter M. Meginniss Jr., disclosed the union's plan to file a legal action. In an interview, he argued that the state's Taylor Law, which governs relations between government employers and public-sector workers, permits pensions to be discussed in a contract negotiation but bars either side from insisting on pension changes as part of its final offer.

The authority wants to require that new employees not be eligible for a full pension until age 62, compared with age 55 for most current employees. The pension changes would require approval by the Legislature. The authority, which technically may not directly discuss pensions at the bargaining table, is in essence demanding that the union agree to jointly petition the Legislature for those changes.

Such petitions, known as joint-support legislation, are a "permissive" subject of collective bargaining under the law, Mr. Meginniss said, but they are not a mandatory subject like salaries, wages and hours - the basic terms and conditions of employment.

"You can always push and push for a permissive subject, and the other side says no," he said. "What you can't do is go and take the last step - 'We refuse to reach an agreement unless you give in on this permissive subject.' "

Mr. Meginniss said a 1975 decision by the board, in a contract negotiation involving the City of New Rochelle and Local 273 of the International Association of Fire Fighters, supported Local 100's argument. In that decision, the board ruled that both sides "improperly insisted" that nonmandatory terms be included in a new contract.

In an interview, Mr. Dellaverson, said, "Everything that we're doing in the bargaining is totally appropriate and completely consistent with the history of negotiations between the T.W.U., Local 100, and the M.T.A."

Mr. Dellaverson, who is a lawyer, said the union's argument would apply only if either side were asking the state board to refer the dispute to a panel of impartial arbitrators. For transit workers, police officers and firefighters, the Taylor Law requires arbitration if either side files a petition stating that there is an impasse and the board then orders mediation that fails.

Mr. Dellaverson said that neither side had declared an impasse and said of the union's legal complaint, "This is a one-day press tactic, but it's not meaningful."

Mr. Meginniss said he disagreed with Mr. Dellaverson. "His view is that you only reach impasse when you go to an arbitration panel, and that's not true," Mr. Meginniss said. "When you take the position that you will not sign a contract unless it has a permissive subject in it, you are violating the Taylor Law. And that is the position they are taking."

It is not clear how the board will rule, and more important, whether it will rule in time to make a difference. The union has vowed to begin a strike at Jamaica Buses and the Triboro Coach Corporation tomorrow and a general subway and bus strike on Tuesday if no accord is reached.

Gov. George E. Pataki appointed the board's chairman, Michael R. Cuevas, and its other member, John T. Mitchell; a third seat is vacant.

Mr. Pataki, a Republican, has strongly supported the authority's stance in the talks. He has called the contract fair, urged the union to accept it and warned that a strike would be illegal and could result in steep fines.

Mr. Watt, the union official, said the governor's stance was hypocritical. "While the governor is wagging his finger at transit workers, that they shouldn't break the Taylor Law, his own agency, the M.T.A., is violating the Taylor Law," Mr. Watt said in an interview.

Bruce C. McIver, who has overseen labor relations for the city and the authority, said: "This is really an attempt by the union to get the high ground in terms of public perception. The M.T.A. is saying, 'We've made an offer, and we're not going to improve it no matter what.' So the union is trying to create an environment in which the M.T.A. will feel pressure to get the item off the table."

Union leaders have voiced confidence that the Democratic-controlled State Assembly, which is friendly to labor, would not do the authority's bidding and enact a worse pension plan, especially because the city's top labor leaders have rallied behind the transit workers.

On Thursday night, just before the first strike deadline, the presidents of the city's Central Labor Council, the United Federation of Teachers, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association and 1199, the giant health-care union, backed Mr. Toussaint's effort to maintain current benefits.

Riders continued yesterday to follow the talks with a mixture of anxiety and curiosity.

"I thought for sure they were going to strike on Friday," said Aubrey Hairston, 25, a musician who lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. "I was so sure, and it didn't happen, so I am much more up in the air about Tuesday. I pray it doesn't happen."

Damien Cave and Michael S. Schmidt contributed reporting for this article.

* Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

TomAuch

December 19th, 2005, 07:30 PM

I don't support the union OR the MTA in this. The MTA is unfairly hoarding their surplus money and giving out for holdiday discounts that aren't necessarily needed, while the union is asking for the pension eligibility to be at 50 and an 8% per year pay increase. Those demands sound nice, but they are too generous. However, I don't think that the pension age should be raised to 62. How about keeping it at 55, or if not, then raise it to 58 or 59 if there really is a pension problem?

Meanwhile, I've been watching the news within the last hour and now there's talk of Metro North workers going on strike! This is going to hurt Westchester, Putnam, and Dutchess County residents, as well as those in Fairfield County and New Haven County, CT. (although I'm not sure if CT people if we hurt since I'm sure that the inter-state issue may make it harder to wage a strike.)

ZippyTheChimp

December 20th, 2005, 01:11 AM

December 20, 2005

Union Rejects Contract Offer, M.T.A. Reports

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and SEWELL CHAN

Leaders of the transit workers' union rejected the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's latest contract offer last night, management officials said, as the city braced for the possibility of a transit strike for the first time in a quarter-century.

With just an hour before a strike deadline of 12:01 a.m. today, Tom Kelly, an authority spokesman, said it had put "a fair offer on the negotiating table."

"Unfortunately, that offer has been rejected by the Transport Workers Union, and they have advised us that they were going - that they are going - to leave the building, and going to the union hall," Mr. Kelly said. "The M.T.A. remains ready to continue negotiations." He offered no further details, and union officials would not discuss the developments as they headed into their private strategy session.

The developments capped a day of intense negotiations between the two pivotal figures in the talks - Peter S. Kalikow, the authority's chairman, and Roger Toussaint, president of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union - who bargained face to face yesterday for the first time since Friday, meeting for nearly 12 hours at the Grand Hyatt hotel next to Grand Central Terminal.

Stepping up the pressure, the transit union began a strike yesterday morning against two Queens bus lines, stranding 57,000 passengers in what the union portrayed as a prelude to a strike that would shut down the nation's largest transit system.

The union originally threatened to shut down the whole system on Friday, but pushed back the deadline to today, seemingly to increase its leverage by warning of a walkout the week before Christmas, one of the busiest weeks for retailers. The state's Taylor Law prohibits strikes by public employees and carries penalties of two days' pay for each day on strike.

As a result of all the threats and deadlines, many New Yorkers for the second straight week felt wildly off balance, straining to figure out how their children would get to school and how they would get to work or to doctors' appointments.

Some New Yorkers backed the transit workers, some saw them as greedy lawbreakers, and some said that both sides in the negotiations deserved the public's disdain.

Warning that a strike would be illegal, Gov. George E. Pataki and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg stepped up their campaign to pressure the union, with the mayor saying that a strike would be "reprehensible."

"The city and state and courts - everybody is going to enforce the law, and anybody that thinks that they can just go break the law is sadly mistaken," Mr. Bloomberg said. "There can be no winners in a strike - it's not going to force the M.T.A. to make a settlement. If anything, it's going to probably dig them in."

At rallies outside the governor's office and in Queens alongside the striking bus workers, Mr. Toussaint and many union members trumpeted their defiance, insisting that it was more important to obtain what they viewed as a just contract than to obey the law barring strikes. Mr. Toussaint said the union would not push back its strike deadline as it did on Friday.

"Unless there is substantial movement by the authority, trains and buses will come to a halt as of midnight tonight," he said at a rally for the bus workers in East Elmhurst, Queens.

With anger in his voice, he added, "We maintain, as we have in the past week, that threats are not going to produce a contract and are not going to work against us. And Governor Pataki should think carefully before he wags his finger at transit workers on television. We transit workers are accustomed to being threatened by transit managers, but we do not appreciate being threatened on public television."

City officials have prepared an emergency plan that would increase ferry service, allow taxis to pick up multiple fares, close several streets to traffic except for buses and emergency vehicles, and prohibit cars with fewer than four passengers from entering Manhattan below 96th Street during the morning rush. The city, alert to the threat of sabotage, is also deploying hundreds of police officers to secure subway entrances in the event of a walkout.

The main obstacle to an agreement, both sides say, is the authority's demand that the union, which represents 33,700 subway and bus workers, agree to pension plan that raises the retirement age for future transit workers to 62, up from 55 for current workers.

The transportation authority asserts that it needs to bring its soaring pension costs under control to stave off future deficits. But union leaders vow that they will not sell out future transit workers by saddling them with lesser benefits.

One idea being considered, one person on the authority's side said, was to drop the authority's demand to raise the retirement age for pension eligibility for new workers and instead have all transit workers contribute more toward their pensions.

Earlier yesterday, Mr. Toussaint hinted at some movement in the talks, saying that the union would reduce its wage demands to 6 percent a year, from 8 percent a year, if the authority promised to reduce the number of disciplinary actions brought against transit workers. The authority has offered raises of 3 percent a year for three years.

The union began its strike against two Queens bus lines, Jamaica Buses Inc. and Triboro Coach Corporation, in the hope of pressuring the authority to reach an overall settlement. The walkout angered many Queens commuters and caused many to squeeze into vans and taxis.

The 707 workers at the two bus companies have been without a contract for 33 months. The authority is taking control of those two companies and five others, and union officials assert that the strike against the companies is not prohibited because the authority has not taken full control of them.

The Public Employment Relations Board, a state body that oversees labor relations for government employees, did not issue a decision yesterday in response to a complaint that the union filed on Sunday, asserting that the authority had violated state law by including its pension demands as part of what it said was its final offer. The union has asked the labor board to seek an injunction ordering the authority to drop its pension demand.

At 9:15 p.m. yesterday, the board's executive director, James R. Edgar, said the board had not yet received the authority's legal papers replying to the union.

Many New Yorkers said a strike would disrupt their lives. Doreen Simon, 55, who lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and works as a housekeeper in Riverdale, the Bronx, said, "I'm going to stay home. What can I do? I can't take a cab to the Bronx. It's going to hurt."

The union has repeatedly urged Mr. Pataki to join the talks, trying to put the onus on him if there is a walkout. But the governor, like the mayor, says that the professionals at the authority should handle the talks.

Mr. Bloomberg said that a walkout would hurt many workers in the hotel, restaurant and garment industries who earn less than the transit workers. The transit workers average $55,000 a year with overtime.

"You've got people making $50,000 and $60,000 a year - are keeping the people who are making $20,000 and $30,000 a year from being able to earn a living," Mr. Bloomberg said. "That's just not acceptable."

Workers at the Metro-North Railroad and Long Island Rail Road are not expected to strike in support of transit workers. Anthony J. Bottalico, the chairman of the union that represents Metro-North engineers, conductors and rail-traffic controllers, said none of his members planned to strike.

However, two other unions, which represent Metro-North ticket collectors and track workers, have vowed to show solidarity with Local 100 by refusing to cross any picket lines, and they could conceivably delay, though not disrupt, regular train service.

* Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

Schadenfrau

December 20th, 2005, 02:09 AM

I hope the union does stike.

Instead of reflexively howling about the transit workers' union, maybe people should turn their sites to the MTA, who have made their wealth on all of our backs.

ryan

December 20th, 2005, 03:43 AM

You think the union demands for 8% raises, age 50 retirements & free healthcare are reasonable?

From where I stand it seems like both sides are greedy.

TomAuch

December 20th, 2005, 04:11 AM

Four words: We are so f*cked
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

December 20, 2005
Transit Union Calls for Strike in Divided Vote
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and SEWELL CHAN

Leaders of the transit workers' union rejected the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's latest contract offer last night, and voted to call a strike shortly after 1 a.m., according to two members of the union's executive board. But the vote to call a strike was not unanimous, and so for at least a half an hour after the formal vote, union leaders remained divided on whether to actually proceed with the walkout.

Adding to the confusion, the president of the Transport Workers Union of America, the parent union for the city's transit workers, told the local executive board he could not support a strike, the two members said. They said that the president, Michael T. O'Brien, said he believed that the transportation authority might change its offer, and he urged the union to re-enter the talks.

A transit strike, the city's first in a quarter century, would prevent people from going to work, cause hundreds of millions of dollars in economic damage and upend the life of the city in the week before Christmas.

The vote by the union board came after a 12-hour round of intense negotiations between the two pivotal figures in the talks - Peter S. Kalikow, the transportation authority's chairman, and Roger Toussaint, president of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union - who bargained face-to-face yesterday for the first time since Friday.

But with just an hour to go before the deadline, Tom Kelly, an authority spokesman, said that efforts to settle the dispute had faltered after the union turned down what he called "a fair offer."

"Unfortunately, that offer has been rejected by the Transport Workers Union, and they have advised us that they were going - that they are going - to leave the building, and going to the union hall," Mr. Kelly said. "The M.T.A. remains ready to continue negotiations." Union officials would not discuss the developments as they headed into their private strategy session.

The developments capped a day in which the transit union stepped up the pressure by beginning a strike yesterday morning against two Queens bus lines, stranding about 57,000 passengers in what the union portrayed as a prelude to a strike that would shut down the nation's largest transit system.

The union first threatened to shut down the whole system on Friday, but pushed back the deadline to today, seemingly to increase its leverage by warning of a walkout the week before Christmas, one of the busiest weeks for retailers. The state's Taylor Law prohibits strikes by public employees and carries penalties of two days' pay for each day on strike.

As a result of all the threats and deadlines, many New Yorkers for the second straight week felt wildly off balance, straining to figure out how their children would get to school and how they would get to work or to doctors' appointments.

Some New Yorkers backed the transit workers, some saw them as greedy lawbreakers, and some said that both sides in the negotiations deserved the public's disdain.

Warning that a strike would be illegal, Gov. George E. Pataki and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg stepped up their campaign to pressure the union, with the mayor saying that a strike would be "reprehensible."

"The city and state and courts - everybody is going to enforce the law, and anybody that thinks that they can just go break the law is sadly mistaken," Mr. Bloomberg said. "There can be no winners in a strike - it's not going to force the M.T.A. to make a settlement. If anything, it's going to probably dig them in."

At rallies outside the governor's office and in Queens alongside the striking bus workers, Mr. Toussaint and many union members trumpeted their defiance, insisting that it was more important to obtain what they viewed as a just contract than to obey the law barring strikes.

"Unless there is substantial movement by the authority, trains and buses will come to a halt as of midnight tonight," he said at a rally for the bus workers in East Elmhurst, Queens.

With anger in his voice, he added, "We maintain, as we have in the past week, that threats are not going to produce a contract and are not going to work against us." Later, at a rally outside the governor's office in Manhattan, he sought to justify a walkout by saying, "There's a calling that is higher than the law, and that's the calling of justice."

City officials have prepared an emergency plan that would increase ferry service, allow taxis to pick up multiple fares, close several streets to traffic except for buses and emergency vehicles, and prohibit cars with fewer than four passengers from entering Manhattan below 96th Street during the morning rush. The city is also deploying hundreds of police officers to secure subway entrances in the event of a walkout.

The transportation authority's 11th-hour offer included a 3 percent raise in the first year, 4 percent in the second year and 3.5 percent in the third year of a new contract, representatives on both sides said. Before yesterday, it was offering 3 percent a year for three straight years.

The authority dropped its demand to raise the retirement age for a full pension to 62 for new employees, up from 55 for current employees. But the authority proposed that all future transit workers pay 6 percent of their wages toward their pensions, up from the 2 percent that current workers pay.

The transportation authority asserts that it needs to bring its soaring pension costs under control to stave off future deficits. But union leaders vow that they will not sell out future transit workers by saddling them with lesser benefits.

Earlier yesterday, Mr. Toussaint hinted at some movement in the talks at the Grand Hyatt hotel, saying that the union would reduce its wage demands to 6 percent a year, from 8 percent a year, if the authority promised to reduce the number of disciplinary actions brought against transit workers. The authority has offered raises of 3 percent a year for three years.

The union began its strike against two Queens bus lines, Jamaica Buses Inc. and Triboro Coach Corporation, in the hope of pressuring the authority to reach an overall settlement. The walkout angered many Queens commuters and caused many to squeeze into vans and taxis.

The 707 workers at the two bus companies have been without a contract for 33 months. The authority is taking control of those two companies and five others, and union officials assert that the strike against the companies is not prohibited because the authority has not taken full control of them.

The Public Employment Relations Board, a state body that oversees labor relations for government employees, did not issue a decision yesterday in response to a complaint that the union filed on Sunday, asserting that the authority had violated state law by including its pension demands as part of what it said was its final offer. The union has asked the labor board to seek an injunction ordering the authority to drop its pension demand.

At 9:15 p.m. yesterday, the board's executive director, James R. Edgar, said the board had not yet received the authority's legal papers replying to the union.

Many New Yorkers said a strike would disrupt their lives. Doreen Simon, 55, who lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and works as a housekeeper in Riverdale, the Bronx, said, "I'm going to stay home. What can I do? I can't take a cab to the Bronx. It's going to hurt."

The union has repeatedly urged Mr. Pataki to join the talks, trying to put the onus on him if there is a walkout. But the governor, like the mayor, says that the professionals at the authority should handle the talks.

Workers at the Metro-North Railroad and Long Island Rail Road are not expected to strike in support of transit workers. Anthony J. Bottalico, the chairman of the union that represents Metro-North engineers, conductors and rail-traffic controllers, said none of his members planned to strike.

However, two other unions, which represent Metro-North ticket collectors and track workers, have vowed to show solidarity with Local 100 by refusing to cross picket lines, and they could conceivably delay, though not disrupt, regular train service.

December 20, 2005
Transit Union Calls for Strike in Divided Vote
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and SEWELL CHAN

Leaders of the transit workers' union rejected the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's latest contract offer last night, and voted to call a strike shortly after 1 a.m., according to two members of the union's executive board. But the vote to call a strike was not unanimous, and so for at least a half an hour after the formal vote, union leaders remained divided on whether to actually proceed with the walkout.

Adding to the confusion, the president of the Transport Workers Union of America, the parent union for the city's transit workers, told the local executive board he could not support a strike, the two members said. They said that the president, Michael T. O'Brien, said he believed that the transportation authority might change its offer, and he urged the union to re-enter the talks.

A transit strike, the city's first in a quarter century, would prevent people from going to work, cause hundreds of millions of dollars in economic damage and upend the life of the city in the week before Christmas.

The vote by the union board came after a 12-hour round of intense negotiations between the two pivotal figures in the talks - Peter S. Kalikow, the transportation authority's chairman, and Roger Toussaint, president of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union - who bargained face-to-face yesterday for the first time since Friday.

But with just an hour to go before the deadline, Tom Kelly, an authority spokesman, said that efforts to settle the dispute had faltered after the union turned down what he called "a fair offer."

"Unfortunately, that offer has been rejected by the Transport Workers Union, and they have advised us that they were going - that they are going - to leave the building, and going to the union hall," Mr. Kelly said. "The M.T.A. remains ready to continue negotiations." Union officials would not discuss the developments as they headed into their private strategy session.

The developments capped a day in which the transit union stepped up the pressure by beginning a strike yesterday morning against two Queens bus lines, stranding about 57,000 passengers in what the union portrayed as a prelude to a strike that would shut down the nation's largest transit system.

The union first threatened to shut down the whole system on Friday, but pushed back the deadline to today, seemingly to increase its leverage by warning of a walkout the week before Christmas, one of the busiest weeks for retailers. The state's Taylor Law prohibits strikes by public employees and carries penalties of two days' pay for each day on strike.

As a result of all the threats and deadlines, many New Yorkers for the second straight week felt wildly off balance, straining to figure out how their children would get to school and how they would get to work or to doctors' appointments.

Some New Yorkers backed the transit workers, some saw them as greedy lawbreakers, and some said that both sides in the negotiations deserved the public's disdain.

Warning that a strike would be illegal, Gov. George E. Pataki and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg stepped up their campaign to pressure the union, with the mayor saying that a strike would be "reprehensible."

"The city and state and courts - everybody is going to enforce the law, and anybody that thinks that they can just go break the law is sadly mistaken," Mr. Bloomberg said. "There can be no winners in a strike - it's not going to force the M.T.A. to make a settlement. If anything, it's going to probably dig them in."

At rallies outside the governor's office and in Queens alongside the striking bus workers, Mr. Toussaint and many union members trumpeted their defiance, insisting that it was more important to obtain what they viewed as a just contract than to obey the law barring strikes.

"Unless there is substantial movement by the authority, trains and buses will come to a halt as of midnight tonight," he said at a rally for the bus workers in East Elmhurst, Queens.

With anger in his voice, he added, "We maintain, as we have in the past week, that threats are not going to produce a contract and are not going to work against us." Later, at a rally outside the governor's office in Manhattan, he sought to justify a walkout by saying, "There's a calling that is higher than the law, and that's the calling of justice."

City officials have prepared an emergency plan that would increase ferry service, allow taxis to pick up multiple fares, close several streets to traffic except for buses and emergency vehicles, and prohibit cars with fewer than four passengers from entering Manhattan below 96th Street during the morning rush. The city is also deploying hundreds of police officers to secure subway entrances in the event of a walkout.

The transportation authority's 11th-hour offer included a 3 percent raise in the first year, 4 percent in the second year and 3.5 percent in the third year of a new contract, representatives on both sides said. Before yesterday, it was offering 3 percent a year for three straight years.

The authority dropped its demand to raise the retirement age for a full pension to 62 for new employees, up from 55 for current employees. But the authority proposed that all future transit workers pay 6 percent of their wages toward their pensions, up from the 2 percent that current workers pay.

The transportation authority asserts that it needs to bring its soaring pension costs under control to stave off future deficits. But union leaders vow that they will not sell out future transit workers by saddling them with lesser benefits.

Earlier yesterday, Mr. Toussaint hinted at some movement in the talks at the Grand Hyatt hotel, saying that the union would reduce its wage demands to 6 percent a year, from 8 percent a year, if the authority promised to reduce the number of disciplinary actions brought against transit workers. The authority has offered raises of 3 percent a year for three years.

The union began its strike against two Queens bus lines, Jamaica Buses Inc. and Triboro Coach Corporation, in the hope of pressuring the authority to reach an overall settlement. The walkout angered many Queens commuters and caused many to squeeze into vans and taxis.

The 707 workers at the two bus companies have been without a contract for 33 months. The authority is taking control of those two companies and five others, and union officials assert that the strike against the companies is not prohibited because the authority has not taken full control of them.

The Public Employment Relations Board, a state body that oversees labor relations for government employees, did not issue a decision yesterday in response to a complaint that the union filed on Sunday, asserting that the authority had violated state law by including its pension demands as part of what it said was its final offer. The union has asked the labor board to seek an injunction ordering the authority to drop its pension demand.

At 9:15 p.m. yesterday, the board's executive director, James R. Edgar, said the board had not yet received the authority's legal papers replying to the union.

Many New Yorkers said a strike would disrupt their lives. Doreen Simon, 55, who lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and works as a housekeeper in Riverdale, the Bronx, said, "I'm going to stay home. What can I do? I can't take a cab to the Bronx. It's going to hurt."

The union has repeatedly urged Mr. Pataki to join the talks, trying to put the onus on him if there is a walkout. But the governor, like the mayor, says that the professionals at the authority should handle the talks.

Workers at the Metro-North Railroad and Long Island Rail Road are not expected to strike in support of transit workers. Anthony J. Bottalico, the chairman of the union that represents Metro-North engineers, conductors and rail-traffic controllers, said none of his members planned to strike.

However, two other unions, which represent Metro-North ticket collectors and track workers, have vowed to show solidarity with Local 100 by refusing to cross picket lines, and they could conceivably delay, though not disrupt, regular train service.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/20/nyregion/nyregionspecial3/20strike.html?hp&ex=1135141200&en=59c0d10be02a35f3&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Schadenfrau

December 20th, 2005, 07:14 AM

I have to say, I'm glad. Every public worker in this city deserves more money and I hope this sets a precedent.

Unless your work is a matter of life and death, you're probably not "f*cked."

JMGarcia

December 20th, 2005, 09:15 AM

Transit workers are often overpaid, rude to their customers, and often take advantage of the very good benefits they already receive. Some of them are down right lazy, not working when they should be, calling in sick prodigiously and generally taking advantage whenever possible to do as little as possible as much as possible.

Other transit workers often take a real pride in their jobs and do a good a job as possible.

Ultimately though, I agree completely with the mayor that the strike is illegal, immoral, and selfish. I am one NYer who is tired of this city being "underappreciated and disrespected" by transit workers.

MrSpice

December 20th, 2005, 09:22 AM

Shadenfrau: Shame on you and people like you - those arrogant, uninformed and insensitive.

You think people can handle it, don't you? So you want MTA to pay the workers better? Well, if you read newspapers and tried to educate yourself (not sure if it's possible) you would know that the reason they walked out is that MTA wanted to increase the retirement age to 62 and ask new workers to contribute towards the health plan - that's what all of working in private sector do and have always done. So making more money was not the main issue.

Who will suffer most from this strike? Not the rich living on Manhattan's East/West side. They can hail a cab and get to work. The ones who will suffer most are lower-middle class and middle class people that have to get to work from Brooklyn and Queens. Those that don't have money to pay the inflated car service charges. Those who don't have 3-4 other people to ride with. Those that get payed by hour and will lose some of their precious earnings because of this strike. And the city and its businesses will lose. This union clique is just like a mafia demaning stores to pay up. It's racketeering. It's illegal and immoral.

ZippyTheChimp

December 20th, 2005, 09:33 AM

There is enough hostility involved in a transit shutdown without you adding a personal note.

stache

December 20th, 2005, 10:02 AM

I bought some Metrocards yesterday and I was talking to the booth lady. She said the whole card replacement/credit system was a sham, people are not getting cards and/or credits returned to them. Think about all those cards that will wind up with just $1.00 left on them that will get thrown away (half) from the current holiday promotion. MTA just chisels away.

ZippyTheChimp

December 20th, 2005, 10:16 AM

that's what all of working in private sector do and have always doneNot true.

Ninjahedge

December 20th, 2005, 10:23 AM

I have to say, I'm glad. Every public worker in this city deserves more money and I hope this sets a precedent.

Unless your work is a matter of life and death, you're probably not "f*cked."

I don't think so schade. Since when are they "entitled" to more money than anyone else for an essentially no-skill job?

It is something that needs to be done, and they do deserve FAIR pay and compensation, but since when do we start judging the worth of someones efforts and labors based simply on years of service?

It is also not fair to compare it to profit margins, being a public service.

I think that the unions are being pissey. Most of the changes do not even effect them at all, just new hires. Doing things like making pensions start at, gee I don't know, RETIREMENT AGE, is not too unreasonable to ask. Maybe they should just limit the number of years a pension lasts now that people are, on average, living so much longer after retirement? Retire at 55 if you want, you will only get 15 years of pension (etc etc).

ON THE OTHER HAND, I also agree that the MTA is being god-awful stupid in this. They keep raising fares and taking in more money, but that money evaporates with no real signs of overall improvement. I know that they are trying to do some station renovation (we are involved with some of that) but they have a poor track record with spending in general.

Not much worse than any other government agency, but that is no excuse.

The holiday discounts were stupid. I would rather have cleaner stations than cheaper fares for a limited period of time.

The bottom line is this. These guys can argue all they want, the only ones that suffer are us, the general public.

The MTA is not going to go out of business like some private companies due to a strike, and the MTA workers are not suffering much more than the people they are keeping from work, all in the name of "more money for Me".

Bleh.

lofter1

December 20th, 2005, 10:48 AM

The bottom line is this. These guys can argue all they want, the only ones that suffer are us, the general public.

The TWU workers will find that they themselves are going to suffer a great deal: Lost Wages (which can never be made up and will completely wipe out whatever gains they are hoping to get), Fines ($25k / day so I hear, which undoubtedly a court will rule can be taken out of future wages), Loss of Public Support (whatever support the union now has from ridership will quickly evaporate).

Does the union leadership / board of directors continue to get paid during the strike? Often those folk have separate contracts from what the workers have. So their "suffering" is of a very different type.

Leadership has claimed that what this is all about is "respect". That is an elusive goal, and something that workers will find hard to gain from management, politicians, et al -- especially in a situation like this where the strike action is against the law.

ryan

December 20th, 2005, 11:52 AM

I have to say, I'm glad. Every public worker in this city deserves more money and I hope this sets a precedent.

Repectfully, Not EVERY public worker deserves more money. I think I'd look to social workers, cops and fireman before MTA workers, but then none of them can afford a dramatic strike, huh?

Hof

December 20th, 2005, 12:07 PM

This is TOTALLY unforgivable,Transit workers striking at Christmas.
I lived in the City at the time of the '66 strike,although I was residing Upstate at school when it happened.I really don't remember what time of year it was,but I do remember that Transit union wanted a 35% pay raise and it sure wasn't Christmastime.
By '81 I was living in Florida Where there are no Subways to strike( no snow,either) but I could imagine the agony New Yorkers were going through,deprived of transportation and mobility for a couple weeks.

After that strike,MTA got serious about actually becoming a useable system again,and the trains got much better.I was tied to the Subways and buses for 7 years,five without a car,and public transportation for me was NOT an option,it was IT ! Daily,I would curse and loathe buses and Subways,even as I used them.I was happy to see them change into something useable again.

When I left NYC in the early '70s,the fare was 75 cents,everyone carried a pocketfull of tokens,junk and bum-filled stations were like passing through threatening landfills,the cars were all mobile Street Art museums and the Transit system had been allowed to decay to the point of abandonment.
The '81 strike spurred MTA back to life as a viable institution,and resulted in a much better way to get around,albeit a lot more expensive.
There was a corresponding increase in Subway cops,as well,and crime began to fall off underground.

The Staten Island Ferry used to cost a quarter then.

People adapted fast.New Yorkers are masters of innovation when it comes to coping with the breakdowns of society--blackouts,garbage strikes,taxi fares,finding places where you can smoke,etc,and by the third day of the strike,entrepeneurs had set up all kinds of ways to transport people,from long-distance Hansom Cab fares to rickshaw runners and "volunteer" taxis.Sneaker shops were selling out,and the bicycles pouring off the Brooklyn Bridge made the City look like Bombay.

I visited a few places this morning before posting,and learned that a lot of institutions have already set up carpools and hired limo services for the duration.Bandit Cabs are probably already on the street,and the rickshaw drivers are smelling a Christmas bonus.I bet you can find people who will carry you from place to place on their back,for a fee and a nice tip.New Yorkers can,and will cope with this.

Everybody should take their Christmas-to-New Years Sick Days NOW.Hardly anybody shows up for work during that week anyway,so connive a few permissable Days out of the Boss and start Christmas early.Just hope it doesn't snow a lot.Good luck.

JMGarcia

December 20th, 2005, 12:12 PM

Having read Toussaint's statements in the NY Times I have to say, he is, at best, being somewhat disengenious.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/20/nyregion/20toussaint_remarks.html

First, the MTA surplus for 2006 is being used to cover the onerous bond payments and massive shortfalls that will start occurring in 2007. You can thank Pataki's "creative" financing of the MTA over the past few years for that. Toussaint conveniently doesn't mention anything beyond 2006 because he know how bad it will be for the MTA. Toussaint is basically trying to raid the capital budget of money earmarked for much needed improvements and expansion of service.

Secondly, Toussaint seems to equate management's desire for greater efficiency and productivity for its work for with a lack of "respect". This is pure hogwash IMO.

Ultimately, the MTA is a public agency, not a profitable corporation, and we all pay for the MTA's employee's (and management's) inefficiency, cushy perks, and below standard productivity with the fares and taxes we pay.

BrooklynRider

December 20th, 2005, 12:32 PM

...Well, if you read newspapers and tried to educate yourself (not sure if it's possible) you would know that the reason they walked out is that MTA wanted to increase the retirement age to 62 and ask new workers to contribute towards the health plan - that's what all of working in private sector do and have always done. So making more money was not the main issue...

ACTUALLY, the fact that working people are being saddled with the kind of financial burdens you are talking about is due to union busting practices that have destroyed the gains American workers have made in the 20th Century. If you had the benefits that they have and someone suggested to you that you negotiate them away, you might put up a bit of a fight rather than saying, "Wait, they've rolled everyone else on these costs. I should just let them pick my pocket."

Our failures to secure the same protections are due to the nature of the "me, me, me" work cultures. All of these companies citing huge increases in health insurance and pension liabilities are not unprofitable. They are failing to meet projections. There's a big difference. The failure to meet projections becomes their excuse to further cut into worker's benefits. The erosion of union support and power hurts American workers overall.

The retirement age for cops wasn't raised. The retirement age for teachers wasn't raised. The retirement age for firefighters wasn't raised. A trade-off of a three year contract for seven more years service is nothing I would take. And, if you would read more than newspapers and refer back to their last agreement you will see the crap raises the union got last contract.

The fact is that the MTA is not honest in its bookkeeping and the riders suffer. Then, the workers suffer. The workers are going to get their contract and THAT will be the catalyst for fare increases even though a billion friggin dollar surplus has materialized six months after the MTA was crying poverty and talking about fare increases.

And, let's not forget the $100 million dollar holiday discount. Anyone siding with the MTA on this one has their head in the sand. It is definitely an inconvenience, but I'm glad they're out there. The transit workers have traditionally been a union of minorities and immigrants. The white-led and dominated police, fire and teachers unions all got decent contracts. Teachers work 10 minutes more a day now - not the seven years more in their lives the city wants from Transit.

JMGarcia

December 20th, 2005, 12:44 PM

It is my understanding that the new rules would only be for new employees, not exisiting ones. Existing employees will not be required to retire later or lose any other benefit they have.

I also think anyone who doesn't look beyond the surplus of 2006 has their head in the sand.

It is outrageous to me that MTA employees start at a salary almost 1/3 higher than other public employees including police.

kliq6

December 20th, 2005, 12:57 PM

as a son of a carpenter and a newphew of firemen, the TWU is a joke. This deal was as good as it gets, current employees arent affected at all, they gained a 10.5 % raise over 28 months. Instead they strike, for a future workers right not to give 5% to retirement, and will wind up out 2 days pay for every day and the Union itself will get 1 million a day fines as well. I just read that the International TWU, is pissed at Local 100 and is looking to oust Roger and talk to the MTA again

krulltime

December 20th, 2005, 01:55 PM

NEW YORK CITY TRANSIT STRIKE BY THE NUMBERS

• 7 million-plus -- Daily commuters affected

• 30,000-plus -- Transit workers on strike

• $440 million-$660 million -- Daily economic loss to city

• $1 million -- City damages sought against Transport Workers Union on first day

• 490 -- Subway stations affected

• 244 -- Bus routes affected

• 10,693 -- Buses and subway cars affected

• 55.7% -- New York City residents who don't own a car

• 23 F -- Temperature in New York at 9 a.m. ET

© 2005 Cable News Network LP, LLLP.

krulltime

December 20th, 2005, 01:55 PM

Millions Are Left to Make It to Work Any Way They Can

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/12/20/nyregion/20cnd-strike.5.650.jpg
At Penn Station, police officers helped fill taxis with people going in the same direction.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/12/20/nyregion/20cnd-strike.4.650.jpg
New York City commuters waited in lines this morning to catch a taxi.

Workers walked to their offices in bitter cold, long lines formed for taxis and the police inspected cars at tunnels and bridges as transit workers started a strike this morning, shutting down New York City's subway and bus system after contract talks with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority broke down.

An average of seven million people ride the subway every day, and the disruption will prevent people from going to work, cause millions of dollars in economic damage and seriously upend the life of the city in the week before Christmas. Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, which represents 33,700 subway and bus workers, announced its first strike in 25 years this morning after feverish last-minute negotiations faltered over the transportation authority's demands for concessions on pension and health benefits for future employees.

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.

The union's executive board voted 28 to 10, with 5 members abstaining, to start the strike, but Michael T. O'Brien, the president of the Transport Workers Union of America, Local 100's parent union, warned the board that he could not support a strike because he believed the authority's most recent offer represented real progress.

The authority dropped its demand to raise the retirement age for a full pension to 62 for new employees, up from 55 for current employees. But the authority proposed that all future transit workers pay 6 percent of their wages toward their pensions for their first 10 years of employment, up from the 2 percent that current workers pay.

The transportation authority says that it needs to bring its soaring pension costs under control now to stave off future deficits. But union leaders vow that they will not sell out future transit workers by saddling them with lesser benefits.

Roger Toussaint, president of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, announced the strike at a 3 a.m. news conference and tried to portray the action as part of a broader effort for social justice and workplace rights.

"New Yorkers, this is a fight over whether hard work will be rewarded with a decent retirement," he said. "This is a fight over the erosion, or the eventual elimination, of health-benefits coverage for working people in New York. This is a fight over dignity and respect on the job, a concept that is very alien to the M.T.A."

Peter S. Kalikow, the chairman of the transportation authority, and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg both condemned the union's action, and vowed to pursue more legal action against it. "I have no doubt by working together we can and will get through this," Mr. Bloomberg said, before walking over the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall from the city's emergency operations center in Brooklyn.

Across the city this morning, New York City Transit began to safely shut down the subways and buses, line by line. About 5,000 managers and supervisors, a fraction of the 47,000 workers, will remain on the job to maintain the system during the strike.

Classes at New York City schools were delayed by two hours.

Metro-North railroad and other regional trains were not directly affected by the strike action but they bring in thousands of commuters into the city who then must compete for seats on whatever modes of transportation they could find to reach their offices.

Streets were crowded with workers bundled up against the cold, with a wind chill of as low as 10 degrees Fahrenheit in the early morning hours. Cars were backed up at arteries leading onto the bridges, tunnels and major expressways that feed into Manhattan, as the police peered into cars to enforce the four-passenger rule, turning some away and letting others pass.

Although New Jersey Transit is running on schedule, commuters living west of the Hudson River coped with changes in their usual routines.

By 6 a.m., the Port Authority police had closed several lanes of traffic on the approaches to the Lincoln Tunnel and set up check points to make sure that all vehicles had at least four people in them. Commercial vehicles were turned back, because they are not being permitted into Manhattan before 11 a.m.

At the Port Authority Bus Terminal, lines for taxis were extremely long, even at 6:30 a.m., a time when there is usually no line. New Yorkers, meanwhile, headed into the dark streets to begin the process of finding ways to get to work, or wherever they needed to go. A transit worker who said he had just recently been hired to maintain subway cars drove through Brooklyn offering people rides to work. He picked up a woman on Washington Avenue and dropped her off at Empire Boulevard.

"She was helpless, she had bags," said the man, Samuel Gowrie, 51. "I just volunteered."

He said he did it from "the good of my heart. If someone offers me something, I am not turning it down. But I am not demanding or pursuing money."

At the corner of Cedar and Nassau Streets in the downtown financial district, Christian Kerr, 28, a foreign currency analyst , was assessing his options for getting to his office adjacent to Grand Central Terminal in midtown.

"I don't know how I'm going to get to work, honestly," he said. He thought he might take one of the ferries to the 30's and walk.

"It's a pain in the neck," he said. "I'm very anti-union, especially this time of year. It's ridiculous. If you look what they're asking for, that's 50 years ago. Pensions don't work like that anymore."

The Red Cross had a truck set up on the Manhattan side of the Williamsburg Bridge, with workers saying they would distribute coffee and cocoa to people walking from Brooklyn.

The union has repeatedly urged Gov. George E. Pataki to join the talks, trying to put the onus on him if there was a walkout. But the governor, like the mayor, said that the professionals at the authority should handle the talks.

In a radio interview this morning, John C. Liu, chairman of the City Council's Transportation Committee, said that because the two sides have failed to come together, someone else needs to step in. "I think the most appropriate person to do that I think would be Governor Pataki," he said. "I think he needs to understand how much this is affecting people and how much this is going to drain the economy of much-needed activities and revenues."

Workers at the Metro-North Railroad and Long Island Rail Road are not expected to strike in support of transit workers. Anthony J. Bottalico, the chairman of the union that represents Metro-North engineers, conductors and rail-traffic controllers, said Monday that none of his members planned to strike.

However, two other unions, which represent Metro-North ticket collectors and track workers, have vowed to show solidarity with Local 100 by refusing to cross picket lines, and they could conceivably delay, though not disrupt, regular train service.

Mr. Toussaint appealed for public support, acknowledging the tremendous inconvenience to millions of commuters and tourists. "To our riders, we ask for your understanding and forbearance. We stood with you to keep token booths open, to keep conductors on the trains, to oppose fare hikes," he said. "We now ask that you stand with us. We did not want a strike, but evidently the M.T.A., the governor and the mayor did."

Shortly after he spoke, Mr. Kalikow appeared before reporters to condemn the strike.

"The T.W.U.'s action today is illegal and irresponsible," he said, calling the walkout "a slap in the face to all M.T.A. customers and New Yorkers."

Mr. Kalikow said the authority and the state attorney general would go to state court to seek a contempt citation against the union. Last week, a state judge issued an injunction barring the transit workers from striking under the Taylor Law.

"I regret the enormous inconvenience this will impact on our customers," he said. "The M.T.A. has made every effort to resolve this dispute."

He said the authority had changed its offer so that it no longer demanded an increase in the retirement age. But he said the union rejected that proposal and never made a counteroffer.

Mr. Kalikow said he would guarantee the public that the authority would take every step "to bring this illegal action to an end as quickly as possible."

Mr. Bloomberg, appearing shortly after Mr. Kalikow, said he would ask the city's Corporation Counsel, Michael A. Cardozo, to join the transportation authority and the state attorney general in an emergency court hearing to hold the union in contempt and order severe fines against the union.

"The union must understand there are real and significant consequences to their action," he said. "For their own selfish reasons, the T.W.U. has decided that their demands are more important than the law, the city, and the people they serve. This is not only an affront to the concept of public service, it is a cowardly attempt by Roger Toussaint and the T.W.U. to bring the city to its knees to create leverage for its own bargaining positions."

He said the city must not let the inconveniences created by the strike stop the city's economy from running and stop its schools from functioning.

"I have no doubt by working together we can and will get through this," he said.

The vote by the union board came after a 12-hour round of intense negotiations between the two pivotal figures in the talks - Mr. Kalikow and Mr. Toussaint - who bargained face-to-face Monday for the first time since Friday.

But with just an hour to go before the deadline, Tom Kelly, an authority spokesman, said that efforts to settle the dispute had faltered after the union turned down what he called "a fair offer."

"Unfortunately, that offer has been rejected by the Transport Workers Union, and they have advised us that they were going - that they are going - to leave the building, and going to the union hall," Mr. Kelly said. "The M.T.A. remains ready to continue negotiations." Union officials would not discuss the developments as they headed into their private strategy session.

The transit agency plans to store the majority of the 6,300 subway cars underground, one next to another, to protect them from the elements. Supervisors will run empty trains over the rails to keep them polished and prevent rust.

On Monday night, work trains, including trains that collect trash and transport money and normally begin their runs between 8 and 10 p.m., were ordered out of service. General orders, which alter service so that tracks can be used for construction work, were suspended. The agency's Rail Control Center, in Downtown Brooklyn, was filled with managers and supervisors Monday night and this morning, continuously monitoring service. Starting in the late evening, the agency tried to place a supervisor on each train to ensure the train was safely operated until the completion of its run.

From the time the strike was declared at 3 a.m., it would take more than 2 hours for all the trains to complete their runs.

The bus system is relatively easier to shut down. The 4,600 buses were being returned to their 18 depots this morning, where they will be stored and guarded for the duration of the strike.

The transit union stepped up the pressure by beginning a strikeMonday morning against two Queens bus lines, stranding about 57,000 passengers in what the union portrayed as a prelude to shutting down the whole city transit system, the nation's largest.

The union first threatened to shut down the whole system on Friday, but pushed back the deadline to today, seemingly to increase its leverage by warning of a walkout the week before Christmas, one of the busiest weeks for retailers.

On Monday, at rallies outside the governor's office and in Queens alongside the striking bus workers, Mr. Toussaint and many union members trumpeted their defiance, insisting that it was more important to obtain what they viewed as a just contract than to obey the law barring strikes.

City officials have prepared an emergency plan that would increase ferry service, allow taxis to pick up multiple fares, close several streets to traffic except for buses and emergency vehicles, and prohibit cars with fewer than four passengers from entering Manhattan below 96th Street during the morning rush. The city is also deploying hundreds of police officers to secure subway entrances in the event of a walkout.

The transportation authority's 11th-hour offer included a 3 percent raise in the first year, 4 percent in the second year and 3.5 percent in the third year of a new contract, representatives on both sides said. Before Monday, it was offering 3 percent a year for three straight years.

Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

Schadenfrau

December 20th, 2005, 02:32 PM

krulltime

December 20th, 2005, 02:37 PM

Cabs With Strangers, and Other Ways to Work

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/12/20/nyregion/20cnd-commute.1.583.jpg
Commuters biked, roller-skated and walked across the Brooklyn Bridge today.

By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS and COLIN MOYNIHAN
Published: December 20, 2005

New York City's subways and buses were replaced by rusty bicycles, old walking shoes, ferries and $20 cab rides today, as millions of New Yorkers who usually take public transportation were left to make it to work any way they could.

The strike by 33,000 transit workers left some 6.9 million people, from school children to physicians, without their usual way to get around in 21-degree temperatures made chillier by a sharp wind. Some employers sent out chartered buses and vans to fetch their workers, other people started walking but turned back when they tired, and some didn't bother leaving the house at all.

But many decided to drive. Some found fairly clear roads leading into tunnels, though others confronted traffic snarls as early as 5 a.m., as police officers turned away cars that had fewer than the four passengers required to enter Manhattan south of 96th Street during the morning rush.

So in a city where it is deemed polite to avoid eye contact with passengers sitting inches away on a crowded subway, New Yorkers were compelled to hop into cars with perfect strangers in order to comply with the four-passenger rule.

"I was waiting and no bus came," said Larissa Silver, 38, who lives in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, and works on Wall Street in Lower Manhattan. "Then a lady pulled up in a car and said, 'Does anybody need a ride downtown?' "

Ms. Silver, who left her house at 5:30 a.m. to get there by 9 a.m., added: "So far, I've been lucky, but this is just the beginning. I don't know how I'll get home. I have no idea."

Christopher Williams, a 44-year-old maintenance worker, was waiting on the corner of 125th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard in Harlem, wondering how to get to his job at 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue. He said he had risen at 4 a.m. instead of 6 a.m. because he anticipated problems.

"The man who gets paid by the day is going to suffer," he said. "You don't show up, you don't get paid."

Dumbia Adam, 36, who had become frustrated while waiting for a company van at 125th Street and Broadway in the predawn hours said a day at work downtown was not worth the hassle of a wearisome morning commute.

"I'll wait until 6:30 a.m., then I'm going home," he said. "I'm not paying $20 for a taxi."

Along major thoroughfares throughout the city, police officers set up check points and blocked streets, reserving lanes for carpoolers and taxi cabs - which during the strike will be allowed to pick up multiple fares, something that is usually prohibited. Madison and Fifth Avenues, which usually hum with traffic, were closed to all but emergency vehicles and buses during the morning rush. Some drivers were forced to wait in their cars for more than an hour until enough passengers could be persuaded to join them.

"You need a ride?" shouted out a man with two passengers driving a silver Mercedes SUV after he stopped on the corner of 125th Street and Broadway. A woman said that she did. The driver turned away and asked a few others where each was trying to go. He turned back to the woman, "Come on, mama, I'll give you a ride," he said.

By midmorning, one of the police checkpoints at 96th Street and Broadway had backed up to 125th Street.

Anne Reilly, a 31-year-old clothing designer, who was trying to get to midtown Manhattan, said the prospect of getting into a car with people she did not know had made her pause.

"I think there are enough police around if anything happens," she said. "The city needs to come together on things like this. I normally wouldn't get in a car with strangers."

Even some cabdrivers, eager to profit under the strike rules allowing them to pick up multiple fares, were grumbling.

"This is going to be bad for everyone," said John Mousadakas, who has been driving a taxi for 28 years. At 9:15 a.m., Mr. Mousadakas, 62, said he had seen "hardly any" groups of people hailing cabs. "A lot of people are staying at home," he said.

Many others walked to work, including Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who spent the night on a cot at the city's emergency operations center in Brooklyn. Accompanied by a retinue of police officers and reporters, he made the 35-minute walk across the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall at about 7:20 a.m. among a throng of thousands of other walkers, skaters and bicyclists, most heavily bundled. The mayor wore a black leather jacket with the collar turned up and a pair of faded jeans. As they approached him from behind, bicyclists had to dismount and walk.

After she'd finished crossing the 6,000-foot long bridge, one pedestrian announced, "I need a foot massage."

After he successfully made it over on his bike, James Fowler, a 40-year old physical therapist from Prospect Heights had second thoughts as well. He still had a few miles to go to his office in Union Square.

"It's cold," he said. "I'm not quite prepared. I don't normally do this."

If the strike continues for several days, Mr. Fowler said he would be forced to consider options other than the bike he had not been on since midsummer.

But "for now," he said, "it's the bicycle."

By late morning, the bridge was still full of people streaming across into Manhattan.

Former Mayor Edward I. Koch, who walked across the Brooklyn Bridge during the strike of 1980, said in an interview on WNYC-FM radio that he received a 6:30 a.m. phone call from the livery cab that picks him up most mornings at 7:30 a.m. telling him to be prepared to be picked up early.

"Instead of being called at 7:30, when I normally leave," he said, "I got called at about a quarter of 7 and I go downstairs and two young women who were going to work say they're going on Sixth Avenue. And I said, 'Come with me.' And I took them up and took them to their place of work and I got to my place of work. So it was easy for me this morning."

Janon Fisher, Vikas Bajaj, Maria Aspan and Ann Farmer contributed reporting for this article.

Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

Ninjahedge

December 20th, 2005, 02:53 PM

Why exactly should the TWU members be willing to let new members get the shaft?

It's pretty obvious that police, teachers, and firefighters all deserve to be paid more than they're getting at the moment. Still, it doesn't do much good to speculate about who deserves what at this point.

Yes it does.

You just start throwing money around it does noone any good.

The MTA sucks with its management, but this TWU is being unreasonable. the only thing I have heard come out strongly is "They have money and we want some".

That is BS. It is like asking for a raise because you had a kid. YES you need the money more, but are you doing anything more for the company now that you have a kid? No? then you should be paid the same ammount (although a lot of companies DO pay you a bit more in that they enable you to put the kid on your insurance policy which they partially cover).

Anyway, most of the numbers are just BS to try to gain bargaining room. NOONE gets an 8% raise for doing nothing more than the previous years. Well, aside from congress. The 8% was there to barter and bolster the 2%/3% raise that was first on the table.

The 50 year old retirement age was another one there placed to counter the 62 year old proposal.

I think they should let these guys retire whenever they want, but make two stipulations. First being, the longer you work for them, the better the benefit. The second, you only GET a certain ammount of years of pension depending on the age you retire.

Let them retire at 50 after only 20 years of service, but pro-rate the ammount and start at a low ammount of years you can collect the pension. Base the pensions say on a 50%/30 year commitment and a 30 year/65 year old retirement age.

Or something similar.

Example:

You started at age 30. You want to get out ASAP, so you work 20 years. Fine.

But, at age 50, you only get 10 years of pension. And after only 20 years, you only get 35% of your final NON OVERTIME net pay.

You work 5 more years. The pension period extends to 15 years of benefits since you are retiring at 55. Since you have been there 25 years, your % goes to 40%.

OK, you decide to go for the whole enchelada. Say 60 years old, 30 years of service. That is the baseline, the same 50% salary, for 25 years.

Each year later than that, you get more benefits to a maximum. They could probably look at retirement age and age of death as a way to make it so that net costs do not come out as much more in the long run, but the people still get more money in their pockets each month for working longer/harder.

You retire at 70, you get it for life, and you get something like 65% of your salary, but unlike the current plan, it would probably costthe same $$ in the long run.

If both people, age 55 and age 70 lived to 100, 45 years at 50% compared to 30 years at 65%......

OK, so you work

NYCDOC

December 20th, 2005, 02:57 PM

It is worthwhile to discuss who is getting what right now. The whole idea here is to negotiate a contract that is fair. How many people on this thread will have the opportunity to collect retirement benefits at the age of 50? Does that have anything to do with the cost of living in NYC? NO! It is just purely obnoxious. I don't know why more people aren't standing up and arguing against this. Most people are uninformed and just think oh it is about making a living. It is much more than that. The TWU is taking advantage of MTA's surplus, which should not be used to give workers better pay and benefits than most of us. The surplus should be used to improve the transit system's infrastructure and pay down the huge debts the MTA has.

I would really agree and feel bad if I heard that transit workers were receiving below minimum wage and worked in inhuman conditions. But that certainly is not the case. These guys are lazy and greedy, period. Especially the union bosses.

And for those of you who think that they deserve to collect their pension at 50 and pay nothing toward it, be my guest and make your contribution by paying $4 a ride, continue to receive crap service, and watch NY suffer as the cost of living continues to rise because of greedy unions!

Gab

December 20th, 2005, 03:31 PM

I have to cancel my business apointment because of strike, it really pisses me off. As customer as all of you should complain to the MTA to tell them the strike doesn't make sense at all. I heard on LCN news that New York city lose 400 millions $ because of that strike. On January I hope the strike will be over.:(

If there is a complaint department, don't give up while you complain and tell the Union and MTA workers to move their asses.

At_the_horizon

December 20th, 2005, 04:25 PM

Come on now guys. They need better health benifits. They really do work in dangerous contions, well at least the subway workers do. Think aobut it, they work with electricy, in dirty tunnels, with rats, maybe even other stuff we don't know about. THe pay well, I don't know if they should be protesting avout that. There's so many people who get a lot less than they do. Did they pick the wrong time to strike. Yes and no. They're costing us so much money, but if you think about it from their point of view, when else can you strike so that you get so much attention?

JMGarcia

December 20th, 2005, 04:31 PM

stache

December 20th, 2005, 04:35 PM

TWU probably does not want to start a two tier system with employees. That's a typical divide & conquer strategy to weaken unions.

JMGarcia

December 20th, 2005, 04:48 PM

The MTA already has a 4 tier system for its employees depending on when they were hired and what kind of work they do.

krulltime

December 20th, 2005, 04:49 PM

I bet that alot of the 'new employees' they are fighting about are their own sons and daughters that are following on father footsteps. That is usually the case. It is a very 'personal' strike.

I know a guy who did this in the philly transit strikes. He wanted his son to have a bigger raise, better benefits, and an early retirenment and he said a lot of the Union heads had the same concerns with their own family ties. So this is a bullshit fight to keep more money going in thier own homes.

JMGarcia

December 20th, 2005, 05:03 PM

^Nepotism at the MTA! No! Shocking! ;)

Gab

December 20th, 2005, 05:21 PM

Ok, I'll focus my business with other customers before I will get to New York city. When the strike will be over, I will come to NYC by Grayhound bus from Montreal because I don't like to stop at the gas station along the highway and I know the bus driver will take care of E-ZPASS on the highway 87. I hope I won't get a refuse of entry at the U.S. custom. I hope I will see the funny custom officer I saw in the immigration office.

ryan

December 20th, 2005, 05:29 PM

when else can you strike so that you get so much attention?

I suppose ConEd could go on strike. That'd be fun. I think this is the core of the issue. This union has a great deal of power b/c their strike has such a huge impact. They've exploited that power to get as much money as possible. It's simple greed.

krulltime

December 20th, 2005, 06:38 PM

Millions struggle as transit strike ruled illegal
Mayor Bloomberg: The strike is 'unconscionable'

http://www.cnn.com/interactive/us/0512/gallery.transit.strike/gal.01.09.34and7th.ap.jpg
Pedestrians crowd a Midtown Manhattan intersection on Tuesday. Millions of New Yorkers
who rely on the transit system had to find a new way of getting around the city due to
the strike.

http://www.cnn.com/interactive/us/0512/gallery.transit.strike/gal.01.08.triburough.ap.jpg
Manhattan-bound vehicles on the Triborough Bridge come to a standstill Tuesday. Traffic
clogged all of Manhattan's inbound bridges and tunnels.

http://www.cnn.com/interactive/us/0512/gallery.transit.strike/gal.01.11.bike.ap.jpg
Bundled up for the cold, cyclists make their way down Fifth Avenue on Tuesday.

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Millions of New York commuters are preparing to battle their way home in near-freezing temperatures during a strike by transit workers, which Tuesday afternoon was ruled illegal by a judge.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg lashed out at union leaders for "thuggishly" turning their backs on the city, adding the strike could cost the city more than $400 million a day.

"You can't break the law and use that as a negotiating tactic," he said at an afternoon news conference. "This is unconscionable," he added.

Judge Theodore Jones ruled Tuesday afternoon that the Transport Workers Union was in contempt of a court injunction ordering it not to strike, and he ordered that the union be fined $1 million per day beginning Tuesday

Bloomberg urged the union's 30,000-plus members to return to work as soon as possible, and drawing a hard line, said the city would not negotiate with the union until then.

The transit strike, the first in 25 years, shut down the nation's largest public transportation system on Tuesday, less than a week before Christmas.

The strike brought to a grinding halt all Metropolitan Transportation Authority buses and subways throughout the city. The system averages about 7 million passengers on weekdays.

City officials have said a transit strike could cost the city $440 million to $660 million a day.

Bloomberg said the strike affects everything from the restaurant and hotel industries to working-class New Yorkers who could lose their jobs as a result of the strike.

"From what we have been able to learn, the economic consequences of the strike range from severe to devastating, depending on the business," he said.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority and city have responded by taking the union and its members to court with contempt proceedings.

Meanwhile, the international arms of two transit unions, facing contempt charges themselves, said at a court hearing Tuesday they opposed the strike and called it unauthorized.

Traffic clogged all of Manhattan's inbound bridges and tunnels early Tuesday in spite of a city mandate allowing only cars with four or more people entering the borough and traveling below 96th Street.

Schools started two hours late.

In announcing the work stoppage, Roger Toussaint, president of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, said, "Transit workers are tired of being underappreciated and disrespected."

Among the chief grievances were the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's plans to require new transit workers to pay more for their health care.

One commuter said he sympathized with the transit workers, according to The Associated Press.

"I try to put myself in their shoes," Matthew Higgs told the AP. "The only way you can get what you want is to take a stand.

"These guys work every day. ... Why shouldn't their kids have good health care? Why shouldn't their kids be able to go to college?"

Another commuter was less generous.

"I think they all should get fired," Eddie Goncalves, a doorman trying to get home after his overnight shift, told the AP. He said he'll likely spend an extra $30 per day in cab and train fares, according to the AP.

The strike defies a court injunction issued last week as well as the Taylor Law, which forbids public employees from walking off the job. The law imposes a fine of two days' pay for each day of an illegal strike.

On Tuesday, the city filed additional injunction orders against the union, seeking damages of $1 million for the first day of the strike, doubling every day thereafter. It is also seeking $5 million in damages to compensate the city for the money it already has spent preparing for the strike.

The city also sought $25,000 fines for individual union members, doubling each day as well.

Bloomberg said earlier the union faces severe consequences.

The mayor joined hundreds of other New Yorkers as he walked across the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan on Tuesday morning.

New York Gov. George Pataki chastised union members for "recklessly endangering the health and safety of each and every New Yorker."

Union's international arm doesn't approve

An attorney for the Transport Workers Union's international arm told a court in Brooklyn that the local's decision to strike was not approved -- and therefore unauthorized.

Attorney Peter DeChiara said Transport Workers Union International President Mike O'Brien attended the union vote overnight and urged Local 100 members not to strike.

Attorneys for the international arm of the Amalgamated Transit Union said the group did not authorize the strike either.

Arguing on behalf of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, State Assistant Attorney General James Henley said that the state will withdraw its contempt charges against the international arms of the unions if they officially were to notify the local that its strike is unauthorized.

DeChiara said the Transport Workers Union's international arm will post the message on its Web site and in its newspaper and issue a statement to the media.

No deal, no work

Hours before the strike, Toussaint, the local president, said transit workers were prepared to lower their wage increase demands from 8 percent to below 6 percent, if the Metropolitan Transportation Authority agreed to reduce the number of disciplinary actions launched against transit workers and grant other concessions.

The vote to reject the transit authority's contract offer was 28-10, with five abstentions, said Ainsley Stewart, a Transport Workers Union vice president.

Toussaint called on Pataki and Bloomberg to play a constructive role in negotiations and restore state and city funds to the mass transit budget. He said that state funding has gone from 20 percent a decade ago "to zero for capital funding."

CNN's Tom DiDonato and Tom Ziegler contributed to this report.

Copyright 2005 CNN. All rights reserved

normaldude

December 20th, 2005, 08:05 PM

Just fire all the striking transit workers. The strike is illegal anyway.

We have..
- 33,000 striking MTA transit workers.
- 5,000 MTA supervisors.
- 21,749 people in line for MTA jobs.

http://www.nysun.com/article/24385?page_no=3

The 5,000 supervisors should be able to train the 21,749 people pretty quickly, and get the system back up & running.

As for any returning MTA workers, we could offer sliding scale bonuses for the first 30% to come back (bonuses locked for at least 1 year, contingent on no more illegal strikes). The next 30% just get their jobs back. And the remaining 40% are fired, and permanently blackballed from ever working for the government again.

Schadenfrau

December 20th, 2005, 08:59 PM

Blackballed? Is that you, Senator McCarthy?

I'm really surprised at how many people are rushing to defend the MTA. The transit workers are doing far better than I am, but that doesn't mean I'm going to side with the bosses and decide the workers deserve less money than I do.

MrSpice

December 20th, 2005, 09:06 PM

Schadenfrau: The best way to determine what is the fair price is to look at the free market of positions and professions.

Does it make sense to demand retirement at 55 with full retirement benefits at the time when the life expectancy is going up and the cost of retirement is going up? Of course not.

Does it make sense to ask employees to contribute at least something towards healthcare when healthcare costs are going up and everyone else in all other industries is contributing more? It certainly does make sense.

Is 3-4% raise a reasonable raise? It seems like it is for those kinds of jobs that most emplyees at MTA hold. Otherwise, they would find other jobs. Isn't that what you're supposed to do in a free country where you feel you are not getting enough? If you are an account and you don't feel you're not getting enough money, would you walk off your job? What is you're a nurse?

BrooklynRider

December 20th, 2005, 09:12 PM

They're not arguing about their health benefits, just whether new employees should have to contribute 1% towards the cost of their coverage. Its very minimal by industry standards not to mention in the private sector.

No one is trying to reduce the health benefits MTA employees received.

By attaching little caveats that affect "new members" it begins the erosion of worker's benefits and rights.

I find it rather amazing that people, who I've talked to, are upset with the union for not accepting the working situation that so many of us complain about: having to contribute more and more money yearly to our insurance (all while deductibles and co-pays increase) - the union says NO. We are seeing the retirement age being raised higher and higher with the excuse being that "we live longer." None of us like the fact that our retirement age was raised from 55 to 60 to 62 to 65 to 72 - the union says NO.

The reality is it would not be a union if it did not protect its workers - including new members.

There is not a doubt in my mind that are some lazy, do-nothing TWU workers. But, the other reality is that the majority do their jobs and these are the people that keep this city moving in the best and worst situations.

There is no accountability at the MTA. The $100 Million discounts was an obnoxious, antagonistic act on behalf of the MTA that it hoped would shore up public support for their side of the negotiations. It failed miserably.

Personally, when I saw the MTA "giving away money" that was not its money to "give away" and that had no redemptive purpose, I hoped the union would play hardball. I admire the stance they are taking. If the national union does not support them - who cares. The national union is not made up of the people working here in NYC.

This absolutely is about respect. The mayor calls them "selfish". Well, selfish is putting your own concerns before the concerns of others. Basically, selfish is having no consideration for others. I don't pay union dues. The mayor does not pay union dues. Riders don't pay union dues. Who exactly should the union be looking out for? When each of us goes and looks for a job do we take into consideration that a competing applicant might be in dire straits and REALLY need the job, maybe more than us? When we ask our boss for a raise or get an increase do we say, "Please, not all that for me. I'm concerned that Joe Schmo get equal to my share." No - we don't. Why shouldn't they be selfish as they try to increase their pay, maintain their benefits and deliver the same package to new members - who are the future of the union.

I disagree completely with the notion that this union "deserves" less money than teachers, policemen, or firemen. Anyone want to throw out some reasons why? Is there an assumption that 33,000 transit workers all mop floors? The system has very sophisticated technology, runs on a massive power grid, and requires intense engineering to keep it going. It reminds me of the 9/11 money give away, where bus boys at Windows on the World were deemed to be of less value than the big shots at the financial houses.

How many people are willing to state right now that make "enough money"? How many are willing to say that they would be "happily willing to pay more for health benefits?" Anyone want to list all the positions in the world that deserve more money than them? Talk about no self-esteem. Hard work and dilligent efforts deserve reward - regardless of social, educational, and ethnic background. The underlying tone is that these people are "less than." We are talking about the average wage being what? $60K? Raise your hand if you think that gets you a decent home in New York City. Raise your hand if you think that's enough to raise a family on in New York City.

The financial industry is handing out bonuses and $60K would be an insulting BONUS to those employees.

We live in a callous age. The folks who are calling the union "selfish" are no less "selfish" themselves.

FLAME ON!

Theres lots of bigger questions and issues beyond the TWU that are projected onto them.

Schadenfrau

December 20th, 2005, 09:15 PM

If you're a nurse, you're probably in a union for healthcare workers.

Free market capitalism shouldn't have the same hold over the public sector as it does the private sector.

Schadenfrau

December 20th, 2005, 09:20 PM

To add to BrooklynRider's very astute last post, I'd like to say that I sense a lot of snobbery towards transit employees that's seemingly based upon the idea that they're uneducated and unskilled, and therefore less deserving of raises and benefits.

It's ridiculous to suggest that people should just go find another job if they're not happy with the crumbs their current job is offering them. I'd venture that most people who disagree with that would be singing a far different tune if their own employers started removing their benefits.

normaldude

December 20th, 2005, 09:20 PM

I'm really surprised at how many people are rushing to defend the MTA.

I'm rushing to defend NYC residents, millions of which are walking for miles in freezing cold weather, in the week before Christmas. Many of which have health problems. The wealthy can take their limousines to work. But it's the lower & middle class people, who rely on low cost mass transit, that are getting reamed.

I'm defending the NYC economy. Where businesses and store owners will lose billions of dollars in the holiday shopping season.

The NYPD worked without a contract. They didn't stage an illegal strike. Imagine if the NYPD went on an illegal strike for a few weeks, and they let rapists & murderers run free in NYC with no fear of prosecution.

I have my issues with the MTA execs too. They pissed away a surplus on holiday discounts. And they give sweetheart land deals for sports stadiums to political cronies. But this illegal strike attacks average New Yorkers & NYC businesses, not the MTA execs. The MTA execs are riding home in their heated limousines.

Schadenfrau

December 20th, 2005, 09:26 PM

I don't think the TWU is on strike to "ream" the poor and let the rich ride around in limos.

I'm certainly making my own trek to work, and it's not going to be much fun. Still, it's probably more fun than working for a place like the MTA. I'm certainly not going to begrudge the union members for wanting their fare share. They're not going on strike to make my commute miserable.

BrooklynRider

December 20th, 2005, 10:11 PM

... But it's the lower & middle class people, who rely on low cost mass transit, that are getting reamed..

Transit workers would fall into that lower & middle income category, so we're all in the same leaky boat.

...I'm defending the NYC economy. Where businesses and store owners will lose billions of dollars in the holiday shopping season..

No business is given a Christmas guarantee. As most of the people truly affected by the strike are NYC residents as opposed to suburban residents, those Christmas dollars will likely still be spent in the "city" - however it will be in the home boroughs, not Manhattan. It does pass a nice reverse to those folks who reiterate that, "if you can afford Manhattan - move!" This might be an effective reminder that it is more than the million dollar condo owners that power the Manhattan economy - despite their condescending views on the "outer"-borough residents.

The NYC economy will not be impacted unless the media keeps scaring away tourists by making it sound as if you can't get anywhere on Mahattan island. Get a Grayline Double Decker Bus "hop on / hop off pass" and you're fine.

...The NYPD worked without a contract. They didn't stage an illegal strike. Imagine if the NYPD went on an illegal strike for a few weeks, and they let rapists & murderers run free in NYC with no fear of prosecution...

The MTA bus lines that went out first have been without a contract for over two years. How long is reasonable to remain working without a contract with gas price fueled inflation, the rent board hikes, and increased TRANSIT fares? And, it is worth noting that, although the police didn't let rapists and murderers run free, they did behave like thugs themselves during their MANY actions and protests that disrupted the city and personally hounded the mayor. The threats they made (e.g., "we know where you live") were more obnoxious and threatening than your average inconvenient transit strike. They were no "professionals" and get no "credit" from me for that embarrassing behavior.

...I have my issues with the MTA execs too. They pissed away a surplus on holiday discounts. And they give sweetheart land deals for sports stadiums to political cronies. But this illegal strike attacks average New Yorkers & NYC businesses, not the MTA execs. The MTA execs are riding home in their heated limousines.

Then this seems the best place to focus the anger and frustration. They gave $100 million away. Kalikow, a developer, is ethically challenged as he works out these no bid deals for prime MTA property. The MTA should be dismantled and the current board sued for the cost overruns on the HQ renovations - which were criminal in nature.

ZippyTheChimp

December 20th, 2005, 10:22 PM

Name me one strike that doesn't hurt "average people" more than company executives.

normaldude

December 20th, 2005, 10:23 PM

Then this seems the best place to focus the anger and frustration.

By punishing millions of lower & middle class New Yorkers and NYC businesses? By causing billions in economic damage, while MTA execs like Kalikow ride home in heated limousines?

Sorry, but the strike is illegal. All the striking TWU workers are criminals. I hope they all get fired.

normaldude

December 20th, 2005, 10:31 PM

Name me one strike that doesn't hurt "average people" more than company executives.

Lots of private sector strikes. Like a GM factory strike. The strike hurts the company stock price, which hurts the execs who have much of their compensation in stock options. Meanwhile, the average person can just buy a different brand car if they want. So in a many private sector strikes, it's a direct fight between labor unions and executives.

ZippyTheChimp

December 20th, 2005, 10:31 PM

I guess your key problem is MTA executives riding home in limos. Would the situation be more acceptable if they had to walk home barefoot?

Your argument is nonesense.

JMGarcia

December 20th, 2005, 10:40 PM

I seriously can't believe that an offer gauranteeing 3-4% raise per year regardless of performance, only needing to contribute 1% (like $5 a month) toward your health care, and a retirement age of 62 with a full pension for life is eroding anything. Again, this is only for new employees. I mean really, is it required that employee benefits never, ever change to avoid erosion of workers rights.

Furthermore, its not like the MTA is raking in the cash and making record profits that they aren't sharing with the workers.

On a side note, the $100 million giveaway was mandated by Pataki. Yes, the same man who has saddled the MTA with billions of dollars of debit in bonds rather than funding them properly thereby gauranteeing years of billion dollar deficits starting in 2007.

On another side note, today I learned that some people will support any union action simply because it is a union action. I mean its like unions are always the good guys, always in the right by the simple virtue of being unions.

The bottom line is that working for the MTA is a great job, even with the what is being offered new employees.

normaldude

December 20th, 2005, 10:42 PM

I guess your key problem is MTA executives riding home in limos. Would the situation be more acceptable if they had to walk home barefoot?

Your argument is nonesense.

No, my key problem is that they broke the law, the strike is illegal, they are all criminals, and should all be fired.

Additionally, their strike harms millions of lower & middle class New Yorkers and NYC businesses, while doing nothing to the MTA execs who are riding home in heated limousines.

If 2 entities have a dispute, they should work it out between themselves. It would be inappropriate for entity 'A' to attack millions of innocent bystanders & businesses, and say to entity 'B' "I will keep attacking these innocent people until you meet my demands".

By staging an illegal strike, they broke the law, and I hope they all get fired.

JMGarcia

December 20th, 2005, 10:46 PM

What everyone is missing here is that if something is not done about the MTA's finances, including changes in employee compensation, there will be extreme long term pain to the users of the system in drastically higher fares and taxes.

While the MTA certainly has serious management problems, that does not mean the union has a right to illegaly strike in an attempt to shake done a government agency.

Additionally, their strike harms millions of lower & middle class New Yorkers and NYC businesses, while doing nothing to the MTA execs who are riding home in heated limousines.

ZippyTheChimp

December 20th, 2005, 10:55 PM

Why do you keep saying the same thing over and over?

We freaking get it. The MTA executives are riding home in limos.

It is true that two entities should negotiate an agreement between them, but when a agreement is not produced, don't assume it is the fault of one side. If you blame the MTA for the lack of an agreement, then it is those executives in their limos that are attacking millions of innocent bystanders.

The strike is illegal, and they are being fined 2X wages.

BrooklynRider

December 20th, 2005, 11:00 PM

Name me one strike that doesn't hurt "average people" more than company executives.

The last strike at the world series Boston vs. NY. That killed Steinbrenner and Yanks execs more than most average people.

and

Any sports union strike.

BrooklynRider

December 20th, 2005, 11:10 PM

...On another side note, today I learned that some people will support any union action simply because it is a union action. I mean its like unions are always the good guys, always in the right by the simple virtue of being unions...

I'll let your other opinions go unchallenged. I had my say, but this statement is disturbing. I think a person has to understand the working conditions and laws governing the workplace BEFORE the rise of unions. Unions have earned the respect and deferrence of the public. Are they always right? No. Are they right more often than wrong? Yes.

Where would this country be without them? That is the question. The continued destruction of unions, whether you are dues paying member of one or not, is an an all out assault on worker's rights. Worker's benefits are being eroded. Our jobs are being exported. Our standard of living is being lowered. We need to look at the numbers. Super-wealthy (tiniest fraction of population) far outpace wealthy in income / asset growth. Wealthy segment is healthy, although not particularly expanding. Middle class DECLINING steadily. Lower class increasing steadily. Poverty is in rapid growth.

"The people" have one resouce: unions. Political parties are bought and sold. POliticians are bought and sold. Some union leaders can be bought and sold, but they know they must deliver to their base. Unions are our best protection and, I'll add, I'm not and never have been a member of one, nor were my parents or siblings.

normaldude

December 20th, 2005, 11:19 PM

If you blame the MTA for the lack of an agreement, then it is those executives in their limos that are attacking millions of innocent bystanders.

I guess this is where we're going to disagree. My view is that if entity 'A' is angry at entity 'B', and entity 'A' illegally attacks innocent people to gain bargaining leverage, I will blame entity 'A' for their illegal action.

If American soldiers wanted higher pay, and fired tank shells into random American neighborhoods until their demands were met, I would blame the soldiers for their illegal action, not the Defense Department or Congress.

ZippyTheChimp

December 20th, 2005, 11:22 PM

You have taken nonsense to a higher level.

ZippyTheChimp

December 20th, 2005, 11:42 PM

Moving on to a more rational dialogue...

I have had much experience with unions and collective bargaining, and what I see here is two organizations, the TWU and the MTA, that have no mutual respect. Each has internal problems, the MTA is basically incompetent, and the TWU has an upstairs/downstairs culture that splits the union.

However, there seems to be solidarity among the membership for the strike. And while it has been noted that pension reductions would not affect existing employees, you could also argue that they are being unselfish in bargaining benefits for new employees.

The issue is beyond the immediate amounts of money involved, and both sides know it. And the rest of the country is watching. Pensions and health-care benefits are eroding for the American worked. Companies like Delta have declared their pension funds bankrupt, and have referred the problem to the federal government, that guarantees those pensions. The problem is that the agency that is responsible for the guarantee is $26 billion in the hole.

JMGarcia

December 21st, 2005, 12:03 AM

Don't misinterpret my statement as being anti-union. Unions are absolutely a good thing and they have done wonderful things and continue to do so. But, that does not mean they should be supported blindly in all instances and in all actions. My point was, that some people provide them with just that and I've run into a few of them today.

As usual, I will say the Europeans are much more civilized when it comes to illegal strikes. They usually only do it one day a week, or rolling strikes to different areas. Enough to make their point without causing such massive damage as what is happening here.

I'll let your other opinions go unchallenged. I had my say, but this statement is disturbing. I think a person has to understand the working conditions and laws governing the workplace BEFORE the rise of unions. Unions have earned the respect and deferrence of the public. Are they always right? No. Are they right more often than wrong? Yes.

Where would this country be without them? That is the question. The continued destruction of unions, whether you are dues paying member of one or not, is an an all out assault on worker's rights. Worker's benefits are being eroded. Our jobs are being exported. Our standard of living is being lowered. We need to look at the numbers. Super-wealthy (tiniest fraction of population) far outpace wealthy in income / asset growth. Wealthy segment is healthy, although not particularly expanding. Middle class DECLINING steadily. Lower class increasing steadily. Poverty is in rapid growth.

"The people" have one resouce: unions. Political parties are bought and sold. POliticians are bought and sold. Some union leaders can be bought and sold, but they know they must deliver to their base. Unions are our best protection and, I'll add, I'm not and never have been a member of one, nor were my parents or siblings.

Schadenfrau

December 21st, 2005, 12:59 AM

stache

December 21st, 2005, 06:20 AM

I know Schad but those guys get showered with overtime. We are not privy to the amount of overtime included in the annual NYPD budget. They refuse to reveal that number.

Schadenfrau

December 21st, 2005, 09:51 AM

You don't make any overtime when you spend the six months in academy, the time you're earning 25K. The NYPD's union folded and hurt their own, and I'm glad to see the TWU isn't doing the same.

Ninjahedge

December 21st, 2005, 10:01 AM

Guys, we seem to be losing sight of the fact that just because "they did this" does not give anyone else the right to do something they believe is equitable.

Just because the MTA is not spending its cash correctly does not mandate the Unions to go on strike because they do not believe they are getting ENOUGH OF A RAISE.

The bottom line in this is that negotiations were proceeding, but the TWU walked out shortly after another offer was still warm on the table. That is not in good fellowship. They could have still kept the threat of the strike looming if their demands were not met, but the offer they had is better than what most get.

A 3-4 percent MERITLESS RAISE is pretty sweet for a low-skill job. The % of insurance cost the employees would have to pay is small as well.

But if they want to start drawing lines in the sand "protecting" their "rights" in these matters, they also have to acnowledge where all these funds are coming from and be willing to be more responsible for the system on a whole.

If the system is not getting enough money to run its operations, it should start looking back to the state for more funding. They should focus on things that are beneficial to all, rather than just themselves. They should rennovate the subway stations to make them a place they do not mind coming to work in. They should find ways to reward cleaning staffs for excelent performance in well-known messy areas.

Arguing for raises, less penalties for NOT FOLLOWING THE RULES, earlier retirement ages, no insurance cost and all that is just screaming to the trees that you think it is unfair that they get all the sunlight.

Unions should fight for what they believe is just treatment, but things like this just smack of greed.

Ninjahedge

December 21st, 2005, 10:07 AM

The last strike at the world series Boston vs. NY. That killed Steinbrenner and Yanks execs more than most average people.

and

Any sports union strike.

Hockey nearly killed itself with the same line of reasoning......

Thing is, in the private sector, going on strike hurts the company. It makes the executives start looking at what they have and see if there is any way to mitigate the loss, both in productivity and in consumer image.

If the strike goes on too long, and is successful, the company could fold which would hurt the execs and the owners. They do not like this.

What would happen if the MTA stays on strike? You think that another MTA company would spring up and take over removing the need for the original and making it go :out of buisness"? You know that is not the case.

Strikes in the public service sector like this are not equivalent to the free-trade capitolistic labor movements. Although they are similar, direct comparisons should not be brought up everytime someone drops a hat.

The whole situation is really disturbing. And as for firing all the workers, I agree. But that would include the executive body as well.

Ninjahedge

December 21st, 2005, 10:10 AM

I'll let your other opinions go unchallenged. I had my say, but this statement is disturbing. I think a person has to understand the working conditions and laws governing the workplace BEFORE the rise of unions. Unions have earned the respect and deferrence of the public. Are they always right? No. Are they right more often than wrong? Yes.

Where would this country be without them? That is the question. The continued destruction of unions, whether you are dues paying member of one or not, is an an all out assault on worker's rights. Worker's benefits are being eroded. Our jobs are being exported. Our standard of living is being lowered. We need to look at the numbers. Super-wealthy (tiniest fraction of population) far outpace wealthy in income / asset growth. Wealthy segment is healthy, although not particularly expanding. Middle class DECLINING steadily. Lower class increasing steadily. Poverty is in rapid growth.

"The people" have one resouce: unions. Political parties are bought and sold. POliticians are bought and sold. Some union leaders can be bought and sold, but they know they must deliver to their base. Unions are our best protection and, I'll add, I'm not and never have been a member of one, nor were my parents or siblings.

Brooklyn, stop looking at what the Unions have done 10 or 20 years ago. What have they done NOW?

They have become as corrupt and power hungry as the people they opposed. They made working conditions better for people, but they formed their own cadres that will not allow anyone to work in their profession without joining them first.

I know that this is a sticky issue there, because if you allow non-union to work with Union, then you can break them. But is it fair to say to a guy "You must join us to work anywhere in this state!"?

I do not know a solution to this.

Ninjahedge

December 21st, 2005, 10:14 AM

I see lots of people praising the NYPD for their balance between union and public interest, but no one has pointed out that, unlike the TWU, they hung all new hires out to dry. It's hard to cheer for a union that slashed their organization's starting wages to nearly unliveable levels.

Then why are they still getting new hires?

One of the problems they have with the teaching situation is that salaries suck and there is little respect for the teachers themselves.

The school system is so hungry for staff that they actually started hiring people without teaching certification! How bad is that?

The lesson learned is that if you want to attract competent people, you have to pay them to do so. But you don't have to be forced to offer new hires any kind of new salary if they know what they are getting before they start.

The motivating factor should be need for people, not because people are saying it would be unfair. It is not reducing the salaries of the people already in that profession that would need time and money to switch their professions...

Ninjahedge

December 21st, 2005, 10:16 AM

You don't make any overtime when you spend the six months in academy, the time you're earning 25K. The NYPD's union folded and hurt their own, and I'm glad to see the TWU isn't doing the same.

OMG!

6 whole MONTHS in the acadamy.

Schade, is thios acadamy a training acadamy? If so, why do they get paid to learn a profession?

I had to pay $25K a year to learn mine, for 5 years, before I got out and earned less than their starting salary.

No sympathy on that point.

TimmyG

December 21st, 2005, 10:17 AM

All the striking workers should be fired. They can be rehired at reduced wages once they get tired of being unemployed.

BrooklynRider

December 21st, 2005, 12:12 PM

By all accounts, the MTA and union had a deal until Kalikow pulled a quick last minute switch raising pension contributions from 2% to 6%. That extra 4% contribution might just as well be deducted from the rate increase to get the true contract raises. It was daring, but an ultimately foolish move.

The union is striking because now is when it has the biggest impact. Striking on Chistmas Eve and Christmas day, everyone shrugs and stays home. Do it now, affect riders, businesses, the economy, tourism, and everyone is discussing the issues.

The idea of firing the union is just silly. Fire them and then who works tomorrow? It's that exact kind of disrespect for what they do that gives power to their claims. Fire them and you think that anyone can just waltz in and start working elaborate switch stations. Fire them and you think anyone can keep the system moving durig a fire or train stall. Fire them and you think any high school drop out can go an maintain and repair the computer metrocard system.

The MTA has no oversight and their poor leadership, decision making and planning are directly impacting riders. The smartest suggestion I read was removing NYC Transit from MTA oversight and control and reverting it to the city, so we can at least have someone to hold accountable. Pataki has not worked a day since the year 1998. His disengaged, couldn't care less, attitude (as well as his failure to fund the system) is a problem.

I walked today gain. I cut 10 m inutes off yesterday's walk. An hour and ten minutes commute today including crossing the Manhattan Bridge (listening to Markowitz yesterday on the bullhorn was enough to keep me off the Brooklyn Bridge today). I admit, in the rain I would be frustrated. But, the weather's holding up for us and we are headed into a holiday weekend. It could be a lot worse.

shocka

December 21st, 2005, 12:17 PM

ryan

December 21st, 2005, 12:17 PM

NYatKNIGHT

December 21st, 2005, 12:28 PM

In Final Hours, M.T.A. Took Big Pension Risk

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE (http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=bylL&v1=STEVEN GREENHOUSE&fdq=19960101&td=sysdate&sort=newest&ac=STEVEN GREENHOUSE&inline=nyt-per)

December 21, 2005

On the final day of intense negotiations, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, it turns out, greatly altered what it had called its final offer, to address many of the objections of the transit workers' union. The authority improved its earlier wage proposals, dropped its demand for concessions on health benefits and stopped calling for an increase in the retirement age, to 62 from 55.

But then, just hours before the strike deadline, the authority's chairman, Peter S. Kalikow, put forward a surprise demand that stunned the union. Seeking to rein in the authority's soaring pension costs, he asked that all new transit workers contribute 6 percent of their wages toward their pensions, up from the 2 percent that current workers pay. The union balked, and then shut down the nation's largest transit system for the first time in a quarter-century.

Yet for all the rage and bluster that followed, this war was declared over a pension proposal that would have saved the transit authority less than $20 million over the next three years.

It seemed a small figure, considering that the city says that every day of the strike will cost its businesses hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenues. But the authority contends that it must act now to prevent a "tidal wave" of pension outlays if costs are not brought under control.

Roger Toussaint, the president of the union, Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, said the pension proposal, made Monday night just before the 12:01 a.m. strike deadline, would effectively cut the wages of new workers by 4 percent.

"They're trying to beat down wages for our new workers," Mr. Toussaint said yesterday.

In the days immediately before the strike deadline, the union kept hammering the point that the authority's pension demands would save little over the life of a three-year contract.

Indeed, not just Mr. Toussaint but some other New Yorkers are questioning whether it was worthwhile for the authority to go to war over the issue when the authority's pension demands would apparently save less over the next three years than what the New York City Police Department will spend on extra overtime during the first two days of the strike.

"What they'd be saving on pensions is a pittance," Mr. Toussaint said.
Robert Linn, a former New York City labor commissioner, questioned the transportation authority's decision - with the backing of the mayor and governor - to go to the mat over pensions with a union that can exact huge pain on the city in a year when the authority was enjoying a $1 billion surplus.

"They might have picked a union that was more willing to consider the subject," Mr. Linn said. "It not just the considerable economic power of this union, it's also the timing," just before Christmas. "It's tremendously problematic."

Gary J. Dellaverson, the authority's director of labor relations, said he and the authority's other negotiators had tried to be flexible in making the pension offer.

"We tried to remold our position, to be reflective of their issues and still be consistent with our finances and our bargaining goals - what we considered a good faith effort to close the deal," he said.

Labor negotiations resemble high-stakes poker, and it was not until a few hours before the strike deadline that the authority 's chairman, Mr. Kalikow, showed his hand, making an offer far different from what he had previously said was his final offer.

With the transit workers' union demanding raises above inflation, Mr. Kalikow raised his wage offer so that raises would average 3.5 percent a year for three years, up from 3 percent in his previous offer. Responding to the union's demand that he not raise the retirement age, Mr. Kalikow also dropped his proposal that future transit workers not qualify for a full pension until age 62, up from 55 for current workers.

But then he put his new demand on the table, that new workers contribute 6 percent of their wages to finance their pensions - a demand that clashed with Mr. Toussaint's oft-repeated refusal to sell out the "unborn," meaning new workers.

Mr. Dellaverson declined to spell out how much that proposal would save each year. "Pension changes always have small effects at the beginning and grow over time," he said.

John J. Murphy, a pension expert and former executive director of the New York City Employees' Retirement System, said he computed that the authority's pension proposal would have a modest saving at first: $2.25 million in the first year, $4.8 million in the second year and $7.8 million in the third year.

But he said the plan would achieve significant savings, more than $160 million in the first 10 years, with some officials estimating that it would save more than $80 million a year after 20 years.

Mr. Dellaverson said it was important for the authority to try to control its pension outlays even in a year when it had a surplus. The authority's pension outlays for the transit workers have soared to $453 million this year, triple the amount in 2002.

"If you know a tidal wave is coming and you can still play around in the surf because it's not here yet, anyone would think that's foolishness," Mr. Dellaverson said.

That wave, he suggested, is a continued rise in pension costs and the authority's forecast of a $1 billion deficit in 2009.

Mr. Dellaverson said the week of negotiations at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Midtown were unusual because the union made hardly any firm counteroffers. "The longer you wait to start to address the problem," he said, "the more dramatic the changes must be to address them."

He said the union made no new offer countering the authority's pension offers. The union, he said, asked for an 8 percent raise a year, without ever specifying how many years of 8 percent raises it wanted.

He said that just before negotiations broke off on Monday, "We made another offer, even though the union had never countered our earlier offer," he said. "From a tactical standpoint, it's unusual in my little business."

Several union officials said Mr. Toussaint was often reluctant to make a new proposal - for instance, lowering a wage demand - because the clamorous dissidents in the union might seize on such a move to accuse him of selling out.

E. J. McMahon, a budgetary expert at the Manhattan Institute who favors reducing government pension costs, said there were wise and unwise aspects to the authority's focus on pensions in the bargaining.

"On one hand, the transit workers are the hardest union to bring this up with," he said. "On the other hand, this has really put a spotlight on the pension issue."

Copyright 2005 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html)The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

Ninjahedge

December 21st, 2005, 12:50 PM

"What they'd be saving on pensions is a pittance," Mr. Toussaint said.

If it is a pittance, why are you making such a big deal about it.

The deal should have been rejected and they should have gone on negotiating.

But striking because of this "pittance" makes the TWU look like the bad guys. If it will only save a small ammount for the MTA, it will only COST a small ammount to the TWU. Saying that a 4% raise in employee contributions will reduce their take home pay by 4% is BS. Taxes alone would make the take home pay difference negligable and would only be feltthe first year.

They should have countered with an additional percent or half percent raise in the first year to counteract the initial expense. then everything would go along fine.

This is such stupid stuff.

And my implied question still satnds. In other strikes, the workers intend to cost the employer money and possibly hurt him and his buisness. How is this hurting the MTA? How is this going to force them to "see things their way" especially when the majority of NYers do not agree with the unions demands?

PR is more important in a Union Strike than anything else, and they failed to garner support before they decided to walk. Now they are looking at a bunch of angry commuters that could really care less about them, right or wrong.

Schadenfrau

December 21st, 2005, 01:08 PM

Ryan, from what I understand, the TWU is arguing that decades of doing physical labor takes a toll on a lot of people and forces them into early retirement. There's currently a penalty on people retiring early now, even for valid health reasons.

I certainly don't expect everyone here to agree with me, but it's pretty hypocritical of people to accuse the TWU of being selfish, then turn around and howl about how you have to walk to work and if you don't get the benefits the TWU is asking for, they certainly shouldn't.

Ninjahedge, do you truly think police officers should have to pay to attend academy, or are you just trying to make a point? NYPD recruitment numbers are down so much that they're trying to recruit people from Canada. There are over 5,000 fewer officers on the streets than in the year 2000.

It's pretty silly of you to whine about how much you had to pay for your education and how much you were paid when you get out of school. Are you trying to say that everyone should have to struggle as much, if not more, than you did?

If you want to reduce the argument to that, my education cost far more than yours did, I probably earn less now, and I'll earn even less when I go to police academy. Still, I'm not going to complain about someone else making more money than I do.

BrooklynRider

December 21st, 2005, 01:12 PM

So BrooklynRider & Schadenfrau,

I haven't heard any justification for why the TWU's demands of 8% annual raises and lowering retirement ages to 50 aside from "they want it." It seems very unfair to me to strike (which should be reserved for a last resort IMO) in order to secure a raise and benefits that are significantly better than what is commonly available to the average person these public servants serve. You both think that they should have better pay benefits than average ny-ers?

(Median nyc income is around $38K, so the TWU averages of $45-$55k put them well above average)

I'm not justifying either of those "demands", but understand that they came to the table to negotiate not compromise, and there is a difference. Negotiations you enter knowing what you absolutely want and yet set your demands in a way that allows you to surrender certain items to the degree that you arrive at your goal. The union wasn't moving on the 55 year retirement age - thus 50 was proposed. The 8% raise is a number high enough that they can come down from. No one expects or would support 8% annual increases, especially when they are seeking a three year contract. 25% over three years is not reasonable. But, from there they might get to the 15% the teachers union got.

The NYC median SALARY is $38K. That would be a middle value that constitutes $0. at one end and who knows what at the other. That would not include bonus compensation. I think that we might want to dimiss the income of peopler living below the poverty level when determining what is fair. Also, statistacally, the "median" is one number and the "average" would be another. Mixing the two for comparison purposes is rather a disingenuous way of arguing that they are making "more than enough." I would be more inclined to view the average salary of NYC residents living above poverty level as the goal.

I, personally, would shy using the word "servant" in descibing these people - or any person for tht matter. It, to me, is a demeaning term. They are employees.

I think they came in at a position ready to negotiate, but they came in looking for "gains." I don't blame them. When you work for a private company that has a booming year of high profits, but management argues that they didn't meet earnings projections. It is usually the predominant excuse not to share those profits with the employees - and employees get pissed and gripe. The MTA made a lot of money this year, ridership is up, and train clealiness ratings were higher. I absolutely understand their assertion of "I want mine," when there is a billion dollar surplus.

People are walking, angry, frustrated or calling in sick because the train system they use is on strike. If no one was using it and ridership was declining, you could argue against the increases. But their argument, to me, is no diffeent than the teachers: all of the improvements didn't happen by themselves. Kalikow & the MTA aren't even riding the trains as another poster lamented. It is a very good point and representative of what each side of the negoriations symbolizes. I'm with the working man - not the rich guy with the cushy job, million dollar office and limo out front. We are a country of haves (who have too much) and have nots (including those having less and less). The divide is widening. Sooner or later you cast your lot with one side or another, I'm with people who pay attention to supermarket prices, the cost of clothing, and who are impacted by higher fares, even when it is only three or four dollars a week - not the folks who have power and abuse it.

Ninjahedge

December 21st, 2005, 01:24 PM

Ryan, from what I understand, the TWU is arguing that decades of doing physical labor takes a toll on a lot of people and forces them into early retirement. There's currently a penalty on people retiring early now, even for valid health reasons.

So my father, a plumber, has a less physical job than a transit worker? I guess counting all that change can be really taxing on these people!

Most of them are NOT physical labor people. I understand where you are coming from, but I can't see where it fits.

I certainly don't expect everyone here to agree with me, but it's pretty hypocritical of people to accuse the TWU of being selfish, then turn around and howl about how you have to walk to work and if you don't get the benefits the TWU is asking for, they certainly shouldn't.

It isn't hypocritical. It would be if we then went on strike for the same reasons while saying it was wrong for them to do so.

Somantics.

Ninjahedge, do you truly think police officers should have to pay to attend academy, or are you just trying to make a point? NYPD recruitment numbers are down so much that they're trying to recruit people from Canada. There are over 5,000 fewer officers on the streets than in the year 2000.

And your point is? You are saying that it is bad that they only get PAID a small ammount to go to SCHOOL to be TRAINED to get a job. Most of us have to pay for it ourselves. Also, you are mixing examples, I thought you were referring to the transit workers.

BTW, BIL is a cop over in Patterson. I kinda know what the situation is. If NYC wants more people, it simply needs to pay more. Paying for training will only get less fortunate people to apply, which may not be a broad enough gamut to fill all the needs they have.

It's pretty silly of you to whine about how much you had to pay for your education and how much you were paid when you get out of school. Are you trying to say that everyone should have to struggle as much, if not more, than you did?

Yep.

I am saying that you have the right to whine about it all you want, but don't expect me to sympathise. This is not a lottery. You have a sweet deal (sorry, THEY have a sweet deal) for very little input and I just do not see any reason to side with them.

They get good pay, a good pension, good benefits, and early retirement.

No sympathy.

If they were complaining about certain working conditions, or ungodly hours, or lack of staff or things like that, I could feel more for them. But just saying that there is a surplus and they deserver more for absolutely nothing more on their end garners no backing from me.

If you want to reduce the argument to that, my education cost far more than yours did, I probably earn less now, and I'll earn even less when I go to police academy. Still, I'm not going to complain about someone else making more money than I do.

Good for you. That's just great. I am not complaining about anything. I am just saying how they are being stupid about the whole thing.

Schade, they could strike for the next 20 years and it would not effect me. I am coming from NJ and I am within walking distance to work.

What I am talking about is the sheer idiocy of some of the complaints THEY are making. So if you do NOT pay for an education, get good benefits and pay, you are somehow allowed to complain?

Stop turning the argument around. Please show us how they deserve more money benefits instead of trying to say that people should not complain about them having them at all.

Ninjahedge

December 21st, 2005, 01:35 PM

I'm not justifying either of those "demands", but understand that they came to the table to negotiate not compromise, and there is a difference. Negotiations you enter knowing what you absolutely want and yet set your demands in a way that allows you to surrender certain items to the degree that you arrive at your goal. The union wasn't moving on the 55 year retirement age - thus 50 was proposed. The 8% raise is a number high enough that they can come down from. No one expects or would support 8% annual increases, especially when they are seeking a three year contract. 25% over three years is not reasonable. But, from there they might get to the 15% the teachers union got.

It is BS BR and you know it.

Gee, just because I say that I want to buy the car for $2 and the sticker price is $30000 that means I can get it for $15K?

And don't even start about the Teachers Union. First off about them, what was the starting salary? Also, what was the net increase to the pay SCALE they have? You realize that all budgets for teachers subtract the ladder/scale pay first before going for the overall.

And finally, even after that raise, they still get paid less than the TWU. So whatever.

The NYC median SALARY is $38K. That would be a middle value that constitutes $0. at one end and who knows what at the other. That would not include bonus compensation. I think that we might want to dimiss the income of peopler living below the poverty level when determining what is fair. Also, statistacally, the "median" is one number and the "average" would be another. Mixing the two for comparison purposes is rather a disingenuous way of arguing that they are making "more than enough." I would be more inclined to view the average salary of NYC residents living above poverty level as the goal.

Median is actually better than mean, so he is being more genuine. Median puts weight behind the number of people AT a certain level as well as the ammount earned, that way Bloombergs salary does not throw off the numners.

I, personally, would shy using the word "servant" in descibing these people - or any person for tht matter. It, to me, is a demeaning term. They are employees.

They are civil servants. They serve the public. They deserve respect from the people around them, but they serve them none the less.

Are you pulling a PC on us?

I think they came in at a position ready to negotiate, but they came in looking for "gains." I don't blame them. When you work for a private company that has a booming year of high profits, but management argues that they didn't meet earnings projections. It is usually the predominant excuse not to share those profits with the employees - and employees get pissed and gripe. The MTA made a lot of money this year, ridership is up, and train clealiness ratings were higher. I absolutely understand their assertion of "I want mine," when there is a billion dollar surplus.

Everyone looks for gains, but they were not looking to negotiate. They were threatening from the start.

And your point about the profits is not well placed. If the company takes the monet and reinvests it in things like new office equipment or redoing the network, or the website, people may say "hey" but they do not look at it as if they were being stolen from. MOST know that the company growing can mean more for them in the long run than an extra 1% right away.

Also, the MTA is spending on both improvements AND the fact that they have a debt over their heads that is looming.

Why is it EVERY TIME that there is extra $$ that the TWU starts griping for more. Remember the last fare increase? How long before they asked for raises then? How long before the system was operating in the red after that?

People are walking, angry, frustrated or calling in sick because the train system they use is on strike. If no one was using it and ridership was declining, you could argue against the increases. But their argument, to me, is no diffeent than the teachers: all of the improvements didn't happen by themselves.

Ahahahaha! Funny.

No correlation whatsoever.

Also, you are missing the whole thing about teachers being paid less, working longer hours with no OT, and having to have higher standards for employment. You are comparing apples to Hondas.

Kalikow & the MTA aren't even riding the trains as another poster lamented. It is a very good point and representative of what each side of the negoriations symbolizes. I'm with the working man - not the rich guy with the cushy job, million dollar office and limo out front. We are a country of haves (who have too much) and have nots (including those having less and less). The divide is widening. Sooner or later you cast your lot with one side or another, I'm with people who pay attention to supermarket prices, the cost of clothing, and who are impacted by higher fares, even when it is only three or four dollars a week - not the folks who have power and abuse it.

You are preaching Socialism there BR. You support groups, but not because they are groups ighting "them". If the group has reasonable demands, I support what they fight for. I do not shop at Wal-Mart and I try to support these kind of things where I can.

But when a union leader calls the ammount of money that would be saved small, but scream if his union members have to pay it, it is duplicitous pandering.

They should not have been so quick to call a strike. They did not have public support and they risk losing more.

Edward

December 21st, 2005, 01:47 PM

Thing is, in the private sector, going on strike hurts the company.
... Strikes in the public service sector like this are not equivalent to the free-trade capitolistic labor movements.
Very good point. In private sector there exists a mechanism to balance two sides. Not so in the public sector - you can suck out ureasonable salary and benefits from the public money, and general public does not have a working mechanism to counteract that.

Schadenfrau

December 21st, 2005, 01:50 PM

krulltime

December 21st, 2005, 02:02 PM

You know these sort of strikes could be avoided if they could have settle these negotiations in a court instead of using blackmail... Just sue the MTA for been unjustify.

Blackmail is what the TWU are doing on one of the most busiest times of the year. I hate to call this 'terrorism' but thinking about it, they are using the same tactics of revenge. You don't listen to us then we have to use some sort of revenge. Of course is not terrorism like killing inocent people. But is like terrorism when they held people hostage. Some poor people who need to work are stuck in some borough cause they don't have another way to get to Manhattan.

My mother's friend who lives in Flushing Queens is a little heavy and her legs hurt and hasn't gone to work because she depends on the train to get to Manhattan to work as a cleaning woman. So she is loosing money by staying at home.

These top TWU guys should get arrested for disrupting the city. All 7 million riders should have justice for their wasted time and sacrifices that most have to deal with this bullshit!

Edward

December 21st, 2005, 02:06 PM

You know NYC is looking pretty stupid. I am currently in Chicago and people here are laughing at the strike in ny. They are laughing at the MTA, TWU and the city.
Right on. The situation is totally bizzare. Society should not allow that kind of disruption. Taxpayers pay to transportation workers to perform essential function - getting to a hospital to get your cancer treatment is not a luxury to be postponed to after holidays, a pregnant woman getting to a doctor's appointment is important.

New York does look pretty stupid. If there is a need for some kind of labor dispute resolution mechanism to be designed - that's fine. But this S&M strike is unacceptable.

Gab

December 21st, 2005, 02:13 PM

I have to meet several business owners who will be willing to pay me to translate document. Ok, I would like to know when the strike will be over. If it's over 5 minutes later, tell me everything about it because I want to get some news as soon as you can.

Schadenfrau

December 21st, 2005, 02:14 PM

Where were all of these people crying for justice for the working man when the MTA raised the subway and bus fares by 33%?

ZippyTheChimp

December 21st, 2005, 02:18 PM

Gotham Gazette - http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/transportation/20051221/16/1686

Transit Strike -- Negotiating For Respect

by Bruce Schaller
21 Dec 2005

You can negotiate for higher wages and to preserve your health benefits and your pension. But how do you negotiate for respect?

Although there were clear dollars-and-cents issues that drove the Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 to call a strike against the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) early in the morning of December 20, respect seemed to be the driving motivating factor.

This became clearer as the strike got underway and the voices of the rank-and-file were heard more prominently in the press. The Daily News, for example, reported the story of Willie Casiano, a mechanic, who said that his supervisor has “been accusing me of chronic sick-leave abuse" during chemotherapy treatment. An Associated Press article quoted Angel Ortiz, another transit worker, saying, "Everybody treats us like crap all the time. We're tired of being treated like we're the garbage of the city." Charles Craft, a track worker, said that some bosses treat his colleagues "like animals.”

It’s hard to understand the transit strike without thinking about these comments. How else can one explain why TWU Local 100 President Roger Toussaint seemed undaunted on the first day of the strike. Undaunted -- despite a court imposing $1 million a day fines on the union; the president of the international union, Michael T. O’Brien, urging workers to abandon the strike and return to work immediately; and the state Public Employment Relations Board dismissing the union's complaint that the transit authority violated state law by negotiating pensions.

Without considering the issue of respect, it is difficult to understand why talks came to a standstill the night before the strike, despite the MTA’s making a significant change in its pension proposals. Up until then, the MTA had wanted to increase the age for full retirement from age 55 to age 62 for new employees. Before the midnight strike deadline, the MTA put on the table a proposal to retain 55 as the retirement age for new employees but deduct six percent instead of the current two percent from their paychecks. The union objected to this as a four percent wage cut. But what could be more negotiable than the difference between six percent and two percent?

Only the issue of respect can explain why the union has steadfastly refused to consider mandatory arbitration, a route they embraced in the early 1980s. As Toussaint has said repeatedly, the union wants its members to make their own decision on what contract terms to accept. Making decisions for yourself is a matter of self-respect.

Nelson Rivera, a shop chairman for mechanics and car cleaners at a Manhattan depot, seemed to articulate to the Daily News how workers’ deep desire for respect and Toussaint as the local president have come together to produce a strike. "’We've been fed up with the MTA and wanted a strike for years,’ Rivera said. ‘But until Roger got elected, no union leader dared to stand up to management.’"

How this volatile situation will play out is impossible to predict. All the forces against the union are applying maximum pressure for a settlement: the $1 million a day fines; Taylor Law provisions that fine workers two days pay for every day they walk out; the international union’s lack of support; and harsh rhetoric from the mayor and governor. With the strike costing the union millions a day and the city tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars in police overtime, lost retail sales and a myriad of other costs, it’s hard to believe that the strike can last an extended period of time. The MTA and TWU need to find some way to bridge the gap.

Whether they have truly done so, however, will become evident only when the time comes – two or three years from now – to negotiate the next contract. Will that next contract also be about respect?

Bruce Schaller, who has been in charge of the transportation topic page since its inception in 1999, is head of Schaller Consulting, which provides research and analysis about transportation. He is also a Visiting Scholar at the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management at New York University.

This website is brought to you by Citizens Union Foundation.

krulltime

December 21st, 2005, 02:22 PM

You know NYC is looking pretty stupid. I am currently in Chicago and people here are laughing at the strike in ny. They are laughing at the MTA, TWU and the city.

One guy said to me and i have to agree with him, Why would you strike during the busiest season for NYC, as a citizen of NYC you are ruining your own economy.

Now you have cabs who are taking advantage of people. You have visitors who are not spending their money here. And at the end of all this.. MTA will just raise its fares to compensate for its loss.

You know my family (and I bet others) who use cars as transportation to work are laughing at all of us who don't depend on the car. My family told me the same thing over and over... that they dont use public transportation and to assure me about it they just pointed out this NYC strike. Even though they have buses on the corner of thier homes in Philadelphia.

This strike is not a good thing for NYC and other cities where they are trying to promote the use of public transportation as oppose to using the car.

BrooklynRider

December 21st, 2005, 02:25 PM

It is BS BR and you know it....You are preaching Socialism there BR...

Geez, I've said again and again I'm a Socialist at heart. Not here, but in other threads you've read. I read your post. You and I can go all day long. We like it. I don't think anyone else does.

We amicably disagree.

JMGarcia

December 21st, 2005, 02:32 PM

What's interesting to me in this whole debate is that generally those who are supporting the strike are only using the most general of arguments to support it such as high-level concepts like workers rights or red-herrings and mis-directs such as things like the MTA management in inept or fares are too high and already hurting the poor.

I also think its interesting that everyone here pretty much has their head in the sand when it comes to the future financial disaster looming over the MTA. If past fare hikes are reason for outrage on behalf of the poor wait till fares need to double and triple to cover expenses.

As for the whole "respect" issue goes, it really cuts both ways. There are well documented abuses on both sides such as management harrassment for valid sick leave as well as a plague of invalid sick leave on the part of the union. For ever management muff-up of a project, there's a documented case of workers sleeping on the job, punching in and then going home, and/or work not actually starting until overtime hours are reached.

I think the most telling news bit about this strike is that no other chapter of the TWU neither approves of or supports this strike. Replacing the current union leader in NY is being actively pursued by other chapters of this very same union.

Edward

December 21st, 2005, 02:57 PM

The last poll I saw on WABC last night had people supporting the TWU over the MTA by 50:42
That kind of poll is meaningless - many people interpret it as "Do the children of union workers should have a happy Christmas?" Only a heartless bastard would answer "No" to such a question.

ZippyTheChimp

December 21st, 2005, 02:58 PM

The transit strike in 1980 was symptomatic of a dysfunctional transit system. Twenty five years later, its replacement, the MTA, has also become dysfunctional.

It's written all over numerous transportation threads:

The state of our capital expansion projects.
Wildly swinging projections of budget surpluses and deficits.
A bloated bureaucracy that, despite having a legal department that dwarfs that of the city, has to outsource much of its legal work.
Mismanagement of valuable real-estate assets.
A governor who cuts funding, because he can't seem to find a way to cut the agency's wasteful spending.
Stupid public relations policies, like banning photography, and the fare discount.

Where was Peter Kalikow up to the 11th hour of negotiations? Did the chairman have something more important to do with a threatened shutdown of the biggest transit system in the country?

The strike is stupid, because it was ill-timed. Talk is cheap; fines are expensive.

The best thing that can result from all this is the realization that the MTA should be completely reorganized.

krulltime

December 21st, 2005, 03:10 PM

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/12/21/nyregion/21commute1_lg.gif

krulltime

December 21st, 2005, 03:12 PM

The best way to deal with the TWU is to have no conductors in the trains just like the L line does. So trains will run all the time.

Ninjahedge

December 21st, 2005, 03:16 PM

TLOZ Link5

December 21st, 2005, 03:22 PM

Quote:
Originally Posted by shocka
You know NYC is looking pretty stupid. I am currently in Chicago and people here are laughing at the strike in ny. They are laughing at the MTA, TWU and the city.

One guy said to me and i have to agree with him, Why would you strike during the busiest season for NYC, as a citizen of NYC you are ruining your own economy.

Now you have cabs who are taking advantage of people. You have visitors who are not spending their money here. And at the end of all this.. MTA will just raise its fares to compensate for its loss.

The City isn't the one looking stupid; the TWU is. They're the ones shooting themselves in the foot and hurting the people of New York. A city is its people, not its government and certainly not its transit union. I detect more than a bit of wishful thinking (and maybe schadenfreude) from Chicago.

Ninjahedge

December 21st, 2005, 03:23 PM

Geez, I've said again and again I'm a Socialist at heart. Not here, but in other threads you've read. I read your post. You and I can go all day long. We like it. I don't think anyone else does.

We amicably disagree.

That is why I am saying that your postulations are wrong, not that you are an idiot.. ;)

I am doingthe same with Schade.

I think what you both have to realize is that most of us here DO feel for people being treated fairly, but at the same time we like to see both sides.

I come from a family of union workers. Grandfather was an operational engineer (equipment), Father a plumber, mother a teacher, and quite a few of my cousins, uncleas and aunts are all part of the mix (carpenters, carpet layers, electricians, masons).

I see their side VERY clearly, but this strike does not address any of those.

As for the "respect" thing, they are pulling the puppy dog eyes thing on us now. They will NOT get respect by asking for more money and less penalties for using sick days.

Bringing out the one scapegoat (chemo recipient) as an example for all is not fair. That guy is special and should be treated with a bit of respect.

But yelling for money and LESS responsibility (earlier retirement, etc) will never get them more respect from management. It will only get them more resentment.

Id they were really striking for that, we would not have this issue about the contract at all. they would have struck for that and that alone...

Citytect

December 21st, 2005, 03:28 PM

This strike is not a good thing for NYC and other cities where they are trying to promote the use of public transportation as oppose to using the car.

Good point. That's a big reason why I think this strike is a terrible thing. That and the fact that the union hasn't really given a reason for it. 'We want' isn't a good reason, in my opinion.

stache

December 21st, 2005, 03:41 PM

I think you would make a very intelligent one. :)

ryan

December 21st, 2005, 03:55 PM

... it's pretty hypocritical of people to accuse the TWU of being selfish, then turn around and howl about how you have to walk to work and if you don't get the benefits the TWU is asking for, they certainly shouldn't.

I'm not saying that the TWU shouldn't fight for good benefits because I don't get them - doesn't have anything to do with me. I'm more informed about benefits than I'd like to be (my work in and around human resources was a definite low point in my career) but the benefits that the TWU are fighting for are outdated by a half-century.

There's been a shift of personal responsibility from employer to employee in our culture. I think it's horrible corporate greed (yadda yadda) to put this burden on workers and I'm fine with the TWU continuing to get those benefits. My problem is the strike. The TWU obviously wants to fight for all they can, but to drag the whole city down to get there - to keep those out-of-date benefits that average nyers will never have - that's selfish to me. I think the stike is more than an inconvenience, and the impact on tax revenues, etc (and I hope no one gets hurt) are not justified by the TWU's fight to keep their golden benefits (or their over-reaching raises).

If there was really horrible work conditions, significantly undervalued pay, sexual harassment culture like in the military - these are all things that for me justify a strike. It's just too much personal gain to justify the cost to the city.

NYatKNIGHT

December 21st, 2005, 04:12 PM

You know my family (and I bet others) who use cars as transportation to work are laughing at all of us who don't depend on the car. My family told me the same thing over and over... that they dont use public transportation and to assure me about it they just pointed out this NYC strike. Even though they have buses on the corner of thier homes in Philadelphia.

This strike is not a good thing for NYC and other cities where they are trying to promote the use of public transportation as oppose to using the car.

This goes two ways - you're right, it may turn away those who are deciding whether to use mass transit or not. But it also may promote more carpooling; all the people who drive alone in their cars every day might now see that there are several people they can catch a ride with and therefore save money. And if the city was to keep the four person per vehicle minimum requirement once the strike is over then mass transit options would still look a whole lot better.

Those people are laughing now, but when the strike is over we'll laugh back when they get in their first traffic jam. I'm not buying a car because of this strike.

NYatKNIGHT

December 21st, 2005, 04:23 PM

You know NYC is looking pretty stupid. I am currently in Chicago and people here are laughing at the strike in ny. They are laughing at the MTA, TWU and the city.

One guy said to me and i have to agree with him, Why would you strike during the busiest season for NYC, as a citizen of NYC you are ruining your own economy.

Now you have cabs who are taking advantage of people. You have visitors who are not spending their money here. And at the end of all this.. MTA will just raise its fares to compensate for its loss.
Chicagoans tend to pounce on anything negative going on in New York to satisfy their ridiculous inferiority complex. I don't doubt they were laughing, they've been jealous of our transit system for 100 years.

BrooklynRider

December 21st, 2005, 04:42 PM

The best thing to come out of this strike would be the continued enforcement of the car pooling laws, the continued dilineation of protected bike lanes in the city, New Yorkers walking more and appreciating the city (there were alot of walkers that were not tourists snapping pictures from the Brooklyn Bridge last night and Manhattan Bridge this morning). And, since the ridership has proven it can move independently when needed, a well-organized rider strike would be the best response to any fare hikes going forward.

The looming financial catastrpohe up ahead, foisted upon us by Pataki and the MTA, is not lost on many here. However, until last year the MTA refused to open their books to scrutiny. They have proven to be out-and-out liars with regards to the financial situation at every juncture where fiscal reporting was due and expected. Yes, the strike is furstrating and maddening. Until we have a system that falls under some sort of legislative and / or executive oversight, we are going to continue to be screwed.

JMGarcia

December 21st, 2005, 05:43 PM

Pataki and the MTA board by be politically sleeze, but that doesn't in any way give the union the right to strike illegaly when they had other options available to them.

When the inevitable fare hike comes the MTA will be in such a shape as the money must come from somewhere whether it be taxes or from the users via fares. Simply protesting fare hikes by not taking the subway is not going to solve the problem.

Worse, is the looming financial disaster coming because of the MTA's current pension plan. I can fully see it going bankrupt and workers loosing everything because they will not allow change to come to it and the public, their employers, will not be willing to pay for the shortfalls via drastically higher fares and taxes. The demographics of the US are such that it is inevitable IMO.

Ninjahedge

December 21st, 2005, 06:19 PM

They need to put a limit on the number of years the benefit lasts after retirement.

The later you retire, the more years you get. This would reduce the risk of the "average" age of, well, DEATH rising to 95 because of all the good health care they get... ;)

If you can retire at 55 you are risking the same baloon Social Security is facing and why they have increased the retirement age.

Why this union gets it better than any other I know of (aside from cops) is beyond me.

ryan

December 21st, 2005, 06:24 PM

They need to put a limit on the number of years the benefit lasts after retirement.

Are you seriously suggesting retirees be dumped from benefits when they reach say 75 years old and need those benefits most?

Ninjahedge

December 21st, 2005, 06:29 PM

Are you seriously suggesting retirees be dumped from benefits when they reach say 75 years old and need those benefits most?

I am saying, that for new employees, that they have the CHOICE of working an extra 5 years to get even longer benefits, than to retire ASAP and go seek another profession.

55 is not dead.

Also, my grandmother got stuck in something similar that she thought was permanent after my grandfather died. Not all pensions are as permanent as you think.

ryan

December 21st, 2005, 06:34 PM

Ninja, that's a god-awful macabre solution to the problem of financing retirement benefits. A better start would be an employee contribution.

Schadenfrau

December 21st, 2005, 06:35 PM

So, you're telling us that people should have the CHOICE of whether or not they want to work themselves into an early grave or eat cat food until they die?

Really, Ninjahedge. Take a step back.

Ninjahedge

December 21st, 2005, 06:40 PM

Ninja, that's a god-awful macabre solution to the problem of financing retirement benefits. A better start would be an employee contribution.

God awful macabre?

Since when?

The FACT is, people are living longer! How else do you want to talk about it? Retirement was initially set at 65 because, macabre as it was, the average life span was 68.

This dod not mean that people did not live to 90, but most did not, so you could afford the pension for the few that were lucky enough to live that long.

The only solution now is to either get RID of the pensions and make it the responsibility of the people themselves, limiting the pension provided to a certain dollar ammount whose payments are up to the user OR limit the time that it is awarded.

The longer you work for them, the longer the benefit.

Quit at 55, get 20 years of pension. Quit at 65 get 30 (or something similar).

Combine that with a percentage increase due to years of service and you get people retiring later, getting more money IN retirement, but costing the system less.

You ignore death as a limiting factor because it is a taboo subject you ignore the fact that that is what is costing these plans so much.

What do you suggest? Supersizing them? ;)

Ninjahedge

December 21st, 2005, 06:42 PM

So, you're telling us that people should have the CHOICE of whether or not they want to work themselves into an early grave or eat cat food until they die?

You mean like I have to? Poor babies. Again Schade, no sympathy.

Really, Ninjahedge. Take a step back.

I have, that is why I can see more of the picture than most Schade.

Really Schade, stop with the personal associations. You still have not answered any of the questions and you are now resorting to emotional logic to try to justify your position.

That only starts the flames.

JMGarcia

December 21st, 2005, 06:47 PM

So, you're telling us that people should have the CHOICE of whether or not they want to work themselves into an early grave or eat cat food until they die?

Really, Ninjahedge. Take a step back.

Red-Herring and an exaggeration too.

BrooklynRider

December 21st, 2005, 09:57 PM

Can just comment that I love the phrase "god-awful macabre"

...The FACT is, people are living longer!..

But, no one has a guarantee that he or she will live longer. Pity the fool that says "one more year" and gets shoved in front of a train by Richard Goldstein.

JCMAN320

December 21st, 2005, 10:02 PM

macreator

December 21st, 2005, 11:07 PM

Those people are laughing now, but when the strike is over we'll laugh back when they get in their first traffic jam. I'm not buying a car because of this strike.

I agree. I am not buying a car for the once in 25 years that a strike occurs and I can't ride the subway.

If anything, the strike shows how resilient New Yorkers are -- the fact that without owning cars, or being able to take mass transit, we can still get to work.

BrooklynRider

December 21st, 2005, 11:33 PM

antinimby

December 22nd, 2005, 12:39 AM

This strike is such a big blow to the city in general. Short term inconveniences, loss of businesses such as retail, tourism, hotel and so on is bad and visible. But above all that, I fear for the long term damage it will do to the city. The loss of jobs and the movement of divisions within companies, if not entire companies, out of the city were already happening. This will only make the decision for companies looking to move jobs out even easier and quicker. The Chicago comment does show how "dumb" and selfish NYer's can be considering that the infighting will end up benefitting other cities. What good if you, as transit workers will get to keep more dollars in your pocket, when the city's economy suffers? There'll be reduced ridership, and then layoffs. You make a few dollars now but lose in the end.

On another note, what do each of you think should be done to change the system so that this will NEVER, EVER happen again? All ideas will be welcomed.

Edward

December 22nd, 2005, 12:51 AM

... what do each of you think should be done to change the system so that this will NEVER, EVER happen again? Which aspect of this complex issue exactly? The pensions dispute is not going away, it's just have to be directed into civilized framework. As to the strike, it's just have to be re-categorized from "Parking here is illegal" kind of illegal to "Shooting a person in the leg is illegal" kind of illegal.

antinimby

December 22nd, 2005, 01:10 AM

ryan

December 22nd, 2005, 01:22 AM

BrooklynRider, are you high? Seriously?

TomAuch

December 22nd, 2005, 02:25 AM

No. I was looking more in terms of systematic changes such as elimination of unions, technology and automation, changes to the law and so on. Unions have their place but maybe someone can come up with an idea that will allow unions to use as leverage instead of striking.

Like I said, if you've got an idea, share it with all of us. I find that if people are not worried about being attacked for sharing an idea regardless of how smart or silly it is, you'll get very good ones (in addition to the bad ones, but that's the price).

Elimination of the union is just one thing that would please the right-wing union busters. I do not support this strike, but eliminating the union would take away the only guard that the transit workers have against future abuse.

...Anyway, I don't understand why the union didn't just go into arbitration or some other mediation on tuesday instead of striking? The MTA gave a few concessions to the TWU, with the exception of the pension system being modified for future employees. This issue should have been discussed, rather than support the first transit strike in a quarter century.

normaldude

December 22nd, 2005, 07:34 AM

The last poll I saw on WABC last night had people supporting the TWU over the MTA by 50:42, virtually the same numbers on Monday and Tuesday.

Could you please provide some links to polls stating otherwise? It's not that I don't believe they exist, but would like to see them.

WNBC/Marist Poll was about evenly split on who to blame (40% blame TWU, 39% blame MTA). Interesting to note the wide split along racial lines. Whites overwhelmingly blame the transit union. Blacks overwhelmingly blame the MTA.

But overall, New Yorkers are clearly opposed to the TWU's decision to strike (38% favor, 55% oppose).

http://www.maristpoll.marist.edu/nycpolls/TS051221.htm

--------------
New York City Transit Strike
For Release: Wednesday December 21, 2005
All references must be sourced WNBC/Marist Poll

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/normaldude/marist.gif

Ninjahedge

December 22nd, 2005, 09:52 AM

Can just comment that I love the phrase "god-awful macabre"

But, no one has a guarantee that he or she will live longer. Pity the fool that says "one more year" and gets shoved in front of a train by Richard Goldstein.

So that means we all have to pay for the fact that someone does NOT get shoved in front of a train?

Or maybe the MTA should hire people to shove retired pension holders in front of trains to reduce overall cost.

You are still sidestepping the whole issue. The pension plans CANNOT be continued as they are without increasing the cost to the taxpayer or the subway rider. Private industry got rid of this for several reasons, the main one being that it is too difficult a socialist program to tally. You never know how much it will cost you and your company.

If you switch to something more concrete and defined, you can then work out cost more definitely and negotiate on that.

ALSO, is there some sort of rule where these guys can't put into a 401K on top of their pension and social security? Nope.

The system needs to be changed, and these guys better start looking for alternatives that may actually benefit them in the long run than try to hold onto a system that may just collapse under its own weight if the taxpayers refuse to support it.

Ninjahedge

December 22nd, 2005, 09:57 AM

I'm from the working class sector of society and my father works for the PATH system. They are fighting for the pension so that the younger guys don't have it taken out of their pay. I know what this is like from my father, PATH went on strike back in the 70s and my father told me that they were fighting for similar things. I agree with the workers and I find it hysterical that Bloomberg is calling them criminals. Bloomberg has some nerve he si no less a criminal than they are. If people don't know what I mean, just talk to any firefighter and you'll remember when Bloomberg was on a fire house blitz closing dozens throughout the city. So he has no right calling them criminals and sayign that they aren't in the best intrest of NYers because when he was doing that he wasn't acting in all of your best intrest.

I hope it doens't go on too long but it's time for everyone to wake up and start realizing that middle class and working class truely power the city and not the upper class.

JC, my father was a fireman, and still is. He was Chief one year, so was his Brother.

One difference. They were all VOLUNTEER firemen. I always get a kick out of the idea of full time fire departments.

the reason Bloom closed the FD's is because people were yelling for lower taxes AND the state was taking even more away from the city. THERE WAS NO MONEY TO PAY THEM!

We seem to forget that a lot when it comes to city employees.

So he closed a bunch of fire departments, and there is undoubtedly an impact. But I have yet to see NYC burn to the ground, so maybe his decision was a difficult, but balanced one.

As for your father fighting for the new employees, that is nice, but why should we feel for that? If it is too unfair to have that taken away, there are plenty of other professions available.

The thing that gets me about the transit strike is pretty simple. If it is such a horrible job, why do they have a 20K person long waiting list?

Not many jobs have that many people waiting to get in, and there are not that many employers that are this tolerant with that much of a HR pool ready and waiting.

Ninjahedge

December 22nd, 2005, 10:03 AM

First and foremost, New York is a WALKING city. It is not impossible. I walk from the center of Park Slope by 1st Street & Seventh Ave to Midtown East Side. It was 1 hour 30 minutes first time, 1 hour 20 minutes the second and tonight I had it down to 1 hour 15 minutes. I head out each time a race my old time. I move faster, get more exercise, and I get to look around and take in NEW YORK. The best and worst are the bridges. COLD to the bone but BEAUTIFUL views - and for once no trains on the Manhattan Bridge to rattle your teeth as they pass by! I know I'll be over the "fun of walking" by Friday. But for now, it's an adventure.

GJ!

(And I am being serious about that BR).

I have never had a huge walk coming from Hoboken, but it has always been a mile for me to get to the PATH, and another half mile on the other side. I have walked or bladed it for quite a while now.

Also, I have walked from Hudson and Houston town to CT and the WTC regularly (And done so faster than the 1 and 9, especially with the slowdowns) and walked as far as Time Square from the same spot because of my loathing of the transit system.

So many people in NYC have no clue how close some things really are. We do have an extensive transit system, but some people forget how easy it is to get around here and would rather spend money to walk around with herds of people underground to be shuttled around in a metal box for longer than it takes to simply walk to where you want to go.

I feel sorry for the people living in the 100's that need to get downtown, and also for those that live in the outer boroughs that have no really easy way to get in, but as for the rest of us, maybe we need to stop lamenting the fact that we have to go to bed earlier and cannot watch the Tonight Show because we have to get up earlier to get into work by walking.

Ninjahedge

December 22nd, 2005, 10:08 AM

Normal, who the HELL is it that runs these polls and keeps categorizing by race?

Maybe they should look at what these people earn and find out that 90% of the people that blame the MTA are below a certain $$ ammount and the opposite for Union detractors.

It is yet again another case of the haves and have nots viewing things differently.

I blame the TWU for the strike, but I do not think that the MTA handled things right anyway. But that is just one mans opinion.

MrSpice

December 22nd, 2005, 11:17 AM

JCMAN320: with all due respect you don't know what you're talking about.

1) You cannot compare the economic situation in the 70s with 2005. People in the US are living much longer nowadays, ecen Social Securiity benefits' age will be extended to 67 in just a few days. If they don't make changes to the retirement system for MTA workers and provide the same full retirement at 55 for all new workers, the MTA will have to raise fares significantly in the next 5-7 years.

2) The medical costs increased dramatically. And just like all private employers, the MTA should be able to ask the workers to contribute more towards their health plans. As the health care benefits cost more and more, other city residents will contribute more and more of the MTA's health costs through higher fares. Most of the people that take subway are not rich. They are regular working folks like you and need to have affordable public transportation too.

3) If the employees of MTA feel that their jobs don't pay enough, they should look for other jobs in the private sectors that pay better. Isn't that what we all do when we don't like our job one way or another? Why should the MTA worker be able to hurt the city when he/she feels that he/she does not get enough?

4) The strike here is illegal - plain and simple. It's just as illegal to strike as to shop lift. You can just as well say "well, people shoplift in the grocery stores because they want to eat and those greedy store owners sell meat for $7 a pound instead of $1". You have the respect the laws and abide by them or face severe penalties if you don't

5) Just because you are a working class person does not make your perspectiev rightr or objective. Quite the opposit eis true - you are biased because you come from a generations of unionized workers that are used to the fact that they can stike/walk out/stop working to get what thet need, and who cares about everyone else. You should get used to living by the rules of market economy - you want to get more money, find another job or negotiatiate with your employer in good faith. If the offer is still not good enough, update your resume and find something else.

BrooklynRider

December 22nd, 2005, 11:31 AM

BrooklynRider, are you high? Seriously?

I walked to work again. 1 hour 35 minutes.

No, I'm not high. You can get up and go to work each day and meet the challenge or you can get up and whine. This strike has been looming for a while. To sit at home stunned and dumbfounded by what happened seems kind of clueless. That goes for businesses and individuals. There was plenty of time to plan. It happened right before the holidays. I'd call that leverage.

Yeah, my reaction is quite opposite. I think that, when you consider the snide remarks made about the workers and the union and "how little they do," shutting down the system maybe drives home that the "minute effort" people refer to actually gets them to where they need to go. Want to appreciate your car? Have it break down for a week. Want to appreciate electricity? Sit through a black out. Taking instantaneous satisfaction for granted? Let your Internet connection fail for a few days.

The Union made a statement, take pensions off the bargainnig table and they go back to work immediately. What's holding up them going back to work?

The statement about unions outliving there usefulness is ignorant. We sadly are seeing the last throes of unions. Then, when we get folks like Mr. Alito on the Supreme Court, he can vote with Scalia and Thomas to rescind child worker rules, diminish worker protection, reverse EEO policies and we'll be back to sweatshops and mob intimidation of workers. Replace them with technology? The unions sure seem useless and self-serving until its your job being outsourced to Bangalore and Calcutta - then it becomes all about how unfair the world is to you. They're selfish. You're selfish. The whole f*ckin world is selfish. Me, Me, Me, Me, Me. Welcome to the 21st Century.

BrooklynRider

December 22nd, 2005, 11:49 AM

... 3) If the employees of MTA feel that their jobs don't pay enough, they should look for other jobs in the private sectors that pay better. Isn't that what we all do when we don't like our job one way or another? Why should the MTA worker be able to hurt the city when he/she feels that he/she does not get enough?...

Absolutely WRONG. The transit system is a union job and unions work based on contract rules. Wages and raises are determined through collective bargaining. Collective bargaining is a series of negotiations, generally done in good faith. With all the alleged applicants waiting for an MTA job, why not just keep the salary for each position at $25K per year and let the increased turnover keep the costs down? The answer: because that would be stupid and the system would grind to a halt.

I'm just wondering how much harder it is to be a cop, walking a beat and eating a donut every three hours (is that as prejudiced as comments against the TWU), versus being a transit worker. Putting aside the Sept 11 numbers, what profession sees more on job deaths? And what about the cops, firemen and teacher's contract demands? They pay more in suburbs? Go there! Oh wait, there are no openings there. There are, however, openings here at a lower salary. Choose.

There's a flawed argument in there and it is more and more apparent that the charges that "this is about respect" ring truer and truer with each passing day.

So, no, that isn't "what we all do." That's what employees in the private sector do. Since you are apparently not a contract worker, you might not know that most executives are "contract workers," who receive certain guarantees based on milestones and other criteria. You might not know that Executives and often officers of companies have medical insurance and reimbursement plans that are much more friendly with low or no deductibles and co-pays, while the general staff gets the "health costs are rising" memo. So, things are not all equal and things are especially not all equal in the private sector. You get the company president and ceo lamenting the high costs and the sacrifices everyone must make - and usually, they are really NOT making any sacrifice themselves. That would be part of their CONTRACT.

Edward

December 22nd, 2005, 12:04 PM

I think that, when you consider the snide remarks made about the workers and the union and "how little they do," shutting down the system maybe drives home that the "minute effort" people refer to actually gets them to where they need to go.
Actually it shows that infrastructure is important - somewhat trivial statement. Transit workers do not have to be bright or highly educated or work really hard to accomplish their jobs.

JMGarcia

December 22nd, 2005, 12:06 PM

There's really two separate issues here that everyone is confusing.

One is what the transit workers actually deserve in compensation and work rules. The other is whether the illegal strike is a valid bargaining tool. It is possible to side with the TWU on one and not the other.

JMGarcia

December 22nd, 2005, 12:08 PM

Actually it shows that infrastructure is important - somewhat trivial statement. Transit workers do not have to be bright or highly educated or work really hard to accomplish their jobs.

The MTA could of course hire twice the number of workers, pay them more, and let each of them only work half as hard and the trains would still run.

Ninjahedge

December 22nd, 2005, 12:19 PM

The MTA could of course hire twice the number of workers, pay them more, and let each of them only work half as hard and the trains would still run.
Um, what were you trying to say with this one JM?

It does not seem to prove any point... :confused:

And BR, don't start siting worker deaths. The thing they found was the reason for this was primarily lack of attentiveness. the more you work the job, the less careful you become. Lesson learned? FOLLOW THE RULES.

We had the safety film shown to us before we had to go out inspecting transit structures a long time ago, it is pretty simple stuff.

So simple it is easily forgotten.

Also, would you guys stop lumping ALL transit jobs together. How difficult is being one of the booth clerks? How dangerous is it to be an engineer or conductor? How difficult?

"Well then, it just shows that some jobs are MORE dangerous! Track workers should be paid even more!!!!"

Then you look at productivity ratios between civil construction agencies and private ones and you have to question that even further.

the private sector costruction industry is notorious for being delayed and trying to place blame for the delays on everyone but the managers in field that decided to try to cut cost by cutting a few corners. Even so, their record on PRIVATE jobs is much better than the civil construction entities.

Hell, their private sector performance is better than their OWN public sector recor, which is better than they government construction agencies....

But that is an entirely different subject... ;)

JMGarcia

December 22nd, 2005, 12:23 PM

^I meant to quote this:

I think that, when you consider the snide remarks made about the workers and the union and "how little they do," shutting down the system maybe drives home that the "minute effort" people refer to actually gets them to where they need to go.

I point was that that transit workers are not necessarily underpaid, highly productive experts deserving more compensation.

ryan

December 22nd, 2005, 12:28 PM

No, I'm not high. You can get up and go to work each day and meet the challenge or you can get up and whine. This strike has been looming for a while. To sit at home stunned and dumbfounded by what happened seems kind of clueless. That goes for businesses and individuals. There was plenty of time to plan. It happened right before the holidays. I'd call that leverage.

You're being a bit binary in your thinking - just because you support the union doesn't make everyone who doesn't agree a clueless whiner. I'm disappointed in you for regurgitaing the union pr spin so specifically - usually you're more fair minded that that.

You can minimize the complaints of people on this board (I haven't complained about it, but the strike has personally cost me money in lost worktime), but this strike is going to have a real effect on the tight-margin small businesses that make this city so appealing. All those mom & pops that you usually support are being hurt, and working poor who can't afford to live in Manhattan or take car services - they're really being hurt - more than just sitting home and complaining.

Do you feel bad for disabled people who are pretty much confined to their homes? How about older people who can't walk six miles in the times you're bragging?

The union's fight to hold onto it's plum benefits is not worth the economic cost to the rest of the city. The end does not justify the means.

JMGarcia

December 22nd, 2005, 12:28 PM

From CNN:

"NYC transit workers union leaders agree to a return to work while strike talks continue, mediator says. Deal must be OK'd by union executive board."

Finally, it looks hopeful that the TWU may come to their senses and realize an illegal strike is not their only option in negotiations.

BrooklynRider

December 22nd, 2005, 01:59 PM

...just because you support the union doesn't make everyone who doesn't agree a clueless whiner. I'm disappointed in you for regurgitaing the union pr spin so specifically - usually you're more fair minded that that.

No offense meant. I wasn't projecting that on anyone specifically. Just a generalizaton (which are rarely entirely fair). My opinions are my own. I'm not writing from anyone else's script.

...You can minimize the complaints of people on this board (I haven't complained about it, but the strike has personally cost me money in lost worktime), but this strike is going to have a real effect on the tight-margin small businesses that make this city so appealing. All those mom & pops that you usually support are being hurt, and working poor who can't afford to live in Manhattan or take car services - they're really being hurt - more than just sitting home and complaining.

I don't feel I'm minimizing the complaints. And, my gung-ho attitude is definitely the minority on the board. The poor always get disproportionately hurt in almost any action or public policy. The mayor and MTA will go out of their way to talk about the impact on the working poor, but its the same people they screw with fare increases. All of those working poor would be much better off if they were a union member, further emphasizing the need and value of unions.

...Do you feel bad for disabled people who are pretty much confined to their homes? How about older people who can't walk six miles in the times you're bragging?

Do I feel bad for them? Well, for one, I fall into the category "disabled," although my problem is not with my legs. So, I generally have an empathy, not a sympathy with the folks you're talking about. You're dealt a hand in life and you play it. I don't feel bad for them, but I know how they feel. Some have it tougher than others, but the people you are talking about who have leg injuries or who are wheelchair bound are more likely taking Access-A-Ride. My time is nothing to brag about. When I come in under and hour, I'll brag.

Whether someone can or cannot walk a mile or two is really not something for me to feel bad about. The car culture of the suburbs have people driving five hundred feet and pulling up to drive through windows to pick up dry cleaning, order breakfast, do their banking and buy their postage stamps. We have people coming in from suburbia who are desperate because they have to walk from Penn Station to 23rd Street and Fifth Avenue. C'mon. Someone on oxygen or with a limitation, I feel bad for. Someone who leads a lazy, sedentary life with no regard for their health or well-being, who is impacted by their own self-neglect - I feel sad for - not bad for.

...The union's fight to hold onto it's plum benefits is not worth the economic cost to the rest of the city. The end does not justify the means.

That is one argument. There are others.

I'm just expressing myself here. That said, I'm glad the strike is over.

BrooklynRider

December 22nd, 2005, 02:10 PM

Since we're talking about how the union needs to get with modern times and understand that what they are asking for is just not reaonable, here's an interesting, although slightly tangetial, report. We keep comparing what they are asking for to the private sector. Here's some private sector examples. How many of these companies ask employees to contribute to healthcare, because the burden on the company is too high?

Corporations paying top executives personal income taxes, paper finds
RAW STORY

Like most Americans, rank-and-file employees of Home Depot Inc. must reach into their own pockets to pay taxes, the WALL STREET JOURNAL begins on Thursday page ones. Excerpts follow (full paid-restricted article here.)

#
But not Robert Nardelli, the home-improvement retailer's chief executive. Under his employment contract, Home Depot picks up a big chunk of his federal and state income taxes. Specifically, the company is obliged to reimburse its CEO for taxes due on a slew of perks, including a high-end luxury car, his family's travel on Home Depot jets and forgiveness of a $10 million loan. Last year, these payments amounted to at least $3.3 million, topping Mr. Nardelli's $2 million base salary.

Amid soaring CEO compensation, a number of companies are paying extra sums to cover executives' personal tax bills. Many companies are paying taxes due on core elements of executive pay, such as stock grants, signing bonuses and severance packages. Others are reimbursing taxes on corporate perquisites, which are treated as income by the Internal Revenue Service. They run the gamut from personal travel aboard corporate jets to country-club memberships and shopping excursions.

"This smacks of Leona Helmsley-like treatment, that only little people pay taxes," says Patrick McGurn, an executive vice president of Institutional Shareholder Services Inc., an influential adviser to big investors that often critiques companies' corporate-governance practices. For these top executives, he says, companies "are removing taxes from the list of inevitable life experiences, leaving only death."

#
Companies often don't disclose these perks, the Journal reports -- they often bury them in financial filings. According to a study cited by the paper, 52% of companies disclosed they paid gross-ups to one or more top executives last year, up from 38% in 2000.

Some examples of companies paying top executives' taxes:

*Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Chief Executive J. Frank Harrison III has received more than $4 million since 2000 to cover taxes on a big restricted-stock grant. That's more than his total salary over the same period.

*Federated Department Stores Inc., which owns Macy's and Bloomingdale's, compensates executives for taxes due on big merchandise discounts at company stories. The corporation said in a filing that the discounts and related tax gross-ups totaled about $300,000 for its top executives in 2004.

*North Fork Bancorp., in what appears to be one of the richest gross-up plans around, could pay more than $125 million in tax reimbursements to top executives if the Long Island-based bank is ever acquired.

The bottom line, the Journal says: "Tax gross-ups have proliferated for one major reason, many compensation experts say: They allow companies to quietly pay more to top managers at a time when executive compensation is increasingly controversial. The current rules don't require companies to disclose tax reimbursements separately in pay tables given to shareholders."

Ninjahedge

December 22nd, 2005, 02:20 PM

BR, the thing is, that is a consumer product.

The company is not offering wages so low that people cannot survive on it, and they are not doing the "only job in town" game. That is where these things get difficult.

It is not fair that these guys get all of this, but if they push it TOO far, they end up losing the people that work for them.

It is difficult to draw a direct connection between these things BR, so please try not to. It opens up too many tangental arguements...

ryan

December 22nd, 2005, 02:47 PM

To beat an old cliche, comparing TWU workers to overpriviled executives is apples to oranges. Compare the TWU worker's conditions, benefits and wages to Home Depot sales associates and you'd be closer.

Pointing out a specific case of corporate greed really doesn't do much for me to support the TWU's demands... It sounds a lot like when Toussaint just wanted in on some of the MTA's $1B surplus.

stache

December 22nd, 2005, 02:57 PM

On the bright side, this should all be over fairly soon and then we can discuss something different.

ZippyTheChimp

December 22nd, 2005, 03:25 PM

I can offer a bit of insight into the TWU. I had a conversation with a friend of mine, whose husband does some information work for the TWU. Sorry, I can't be more specific, although he will probably be fired for counseling the union executive board not to go on strike.

Some of the board members who were voted out when Toussaint was elected president have regained their positions, so the local leadership is split on policy. I have been told that physical fights sometimes break out at executive board meetings.

The leadership of the parent International TWU are mainly the old guard of the union, and they have generally not supported the local since Toussaint became president. There has long been hostility between union workers and MTA management.

None of the leadership factions wanted to appear to the membership to cave-in to the MTA. There is more to this than the numbers being thrown around.

An environment of racism and hostility permeates the NYC transit system. A decade ago, an employee at my company took an early retirement package, and needed a few years employment to bridge the gap to 401K eligibility. He took a job with the transit system, maintaining communications equipment. A few years later, I met him and asked if he was still with the MTA. He said he got fed up with the abuse after only 6 months, and not needing the job, quit. This was a model employee, who would often wonder how I maintained my sanity defending crybaby workers.

Ninjahedge

December 22nd, 2005, 03:28 PM

So you are saying the whole things reeks.

Anyone surprised?

JMGarcia

December 22nd, 2005, 03:55 PM

I have to agree with Zippy in that the whole working culture in MTA is very, very bad. Believe me when I say I know of what I speak in this case.

Employees are often very disrespectful to management and vice versa. Some employees take advantage whenever and wherever they can and some management is very harsh is return. The "bus" wing of the union is known to be particularly militant. Human Resources is know to be particularly dehumanizing.

The question of who is to blame is moot. Both sides are at fault. Both sides also know exactly which buttons to push on a day to day basis to annoy the other side to the fullest possible extent.

Gulcrapek

December 22nd, 2005, 04:04 PM

Over.

TomAuch

December 22nd, 2005, 04:07 PM

I'm glad the strike appears to be over. I'm also glad that the TWU and the MTA will continue negotiating. The disagreements between them were never big enough to justify this strike, and now I'm happy that they will do what they should have done three days ago: negotiate and mediate.

MrSpice

December 22nd, 2005, 08:58 PM

MTA should be privatized. All government agencies suck.

Teno

December 22nd, 2005, 10:00 PM

We still have future contract negotiations

For the past six years we've come down to the wire averting a strike. I don't think many people support the MTA, and most people felt some sympathy for the TWU as long as a strike was only a threat.

The TWU actually going through with the strike this time is going to leave a bitter taste in the city's mouth. The TWU has played its strongest hand with weak support and no productive result.

A future threat of strike will be met with harsh criticism and few New Yorker's will likely be sympathitic to union claims.

MrSpice

December 22nd, 2005, 10:32 PM

Teno: The reason why so many people have sympathy for the transit workers in this situation and don't support the MTA is because those people know nothing about the situation. They approach it emotionally. MTA looks like a big giant with 1 bil surplus that does not want to pay poor workers any money. In reality, the MTA has huge projected deficit. All they were asking for that new - not even existing - workers contribute more towards retirement and healthcare and retire at 62 instead of 55. All of this makes a lot of sense considering that people live longer and healthcare costs increased dramatically over the last few years. The MTA has to do it to make sure it's solvent for the years to come. The smartest thing the union could do was to agree with both provisions and just ask for better raises. That would a win-win situation for workers, MTA and New Yorkers. No one in the private industry can retire at 55 with full benefits. And the MTA workers can do it only because we - the taxpayers - pay for these benefits. This strike was an outrage.

TomAuch

December 22nd, 2005, 11:58 PM

MTA should be privatized. All government agencies suck.

That'll work :eyesroll:

stache

December 23rd, 2005, 05:30 AM

Yeah. The results were so excellent in the U.K. *smirk*

Ninjahedge

December 23rd, 2005, 09:50 AM

Actually, there needs to be a compromise on BOTH sides.

i am SURE the TWU would feel less victimized if the MTA VOLUNTEERED to take cuts in its own benefit package at the same time calling for the TWU to do so in order to avoid a budget problem.

But no. Management never cuts itself to save money in government agencies. they just get their golden parachutes ready before they jump off the crashing plane.....

Schadenfrau

December 23rd, 2005, 09:58 AM

MrSpice, the MTA is a public benefit corporation, not a government agency.

You should probably work that one out before you rant about how anyone who doesn't support the MTA knows nothing about the situation.

ZippyTheChimp

December 23rd, 2005, 11:10 AM

We - the taxpayers - also support the benefits and screwups in the private sector.

Teno

December 23rd, 2005, 04:17 PM

The problem with turning public agencies over for private business. Is the fact that private business over all interested is in profit.

If the NYC Subway system was not profitable they will either make necessary changes to make it profitable. Which would likely not benefit the riders or the workers.

Or they would dump the entire mess and call it a loss.

Gab

December 24th, 2005, 12:34 PM

MTA should be privatized. All government agencies suck. Public transportation in all city in the world should be owned the governement. If you privatize, the private businesses will mark up the price as they wish.

infoshare

December 24th, 2005, 03:51 PM

This strike was an outrage.

cheers to that! But , what exactly brought it to an abrupt end? If Mr. T did not intend to follow thruoug and hold his ground - what was the point of taking that drastic measure. I spent 4 hours each day going -to-and-from work.

Bad move Mr. T

BrooklynRider

December 27th, 2005, 11:06 AM

...You should probably work that one out before you rant about how anyone who doesn't support the MTA knows nothing about the situation.

Ditto

JMGarcia

January 13th, 2006, 03:55 PM

America's pension time bomb
Commentary: Workers, employers, taxpayers, governments. Meet the key players in the coming battle.
By Geoffrey Colvin, FORTUNE senior editor-at-large
January 13, 2006: 11:03 AM EST

NEW YORK (FORTUNE) - Some of the nastiest conflicts in America's future have recently begun to reveal themselves. Let's call them, broadly, the pension wars.

They will be fought on a wide range of battlefields, involving not just workers and their employers but also governments at all levels, regulators, accountants and taxpayers. And these wars will be bitter -- because the combatants will be desperate.

A hint of what's to come could be seen in the New York City transit strike. Most of America didn't notice exactly what sparked the first such strike in 25 years, costing businesses, individuals and the city hundreds of millions of dollars. The answer is pensions. The transit authority and the workers were agreed on virtually everything except how much new employees would contribute toward their pensions--6 percent of wages vs. 2 percent -- and neither side felt it could give an inch on that.

The reasons illustrate the larger problem. The transit authority, like many private and public employers, is watching its pension costs rocket as longer-living retirees increase in number. That burden will become unbearable. On the other side, union members are watching employers nationwide dumping or cutting their pensions just as Social Security starts to look shaky. They figure retirement security is the one thing they cannot sacrifice. Result: war.

New York's transit strike also illustrates an important reason that the pension wars weren't headed off long ago. The truth about pensions has been systematically hidden, with all parties collaborating in the deceit. Public-employee pensions have never been accounted for like those run by private employers. No government is required to tell you its pension liability the way, say, General Motors is, on the theory that governments can always just extract more money from the taxpayers to pay retirees.

But this year the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, which sets the rules for the public sector, is changing its regulations. State and local governments will now have to reveal their pension liabilities, which may be underfunded by $1 trillion or more.

Private employers, while required to account for their pensions, have played sophisticated games with the numbers -- all within the rules. For example, they can assume the pension fund increased in value when it actually declined. They can assume it will continue increasing in value at a rate that is almost certainly way too high. They can even jack up their reported profits based on that assumed, though nonexistent, increase in pension-fund value.

But eventually actual dollars must be paid out, a prospect that has seriously spooked private employers. Just this month IBM (Research) announced that it would join the long list of companies (Verizon, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola) that have frozen their pension plans, instead increasing 401(k) contributions for employees. And the 18-month negotiation between UPS and its pilots has come down to just two points: whether outsourced pilots overseas must be union members, and (you guessed it) pensions.

The pension wars will inevitably include Congress, which is working out a way to increase funding for the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., now deeply in the red as huge companies like UAL, parent of United Air Lines, dump their pension plans on it. Since the PBGC is an insurer, the logical move is to raise the premiums companies pay, especially for the riskiest plans.

But if Congress mandates a premium hike, as it probably will, then more companies will just dump their plans on the PBGC, redoubling the need for more funds, leading to more premium hikes, and so on. If you can see any way taxpayers will not get billed for a giant bailout, please e-mail Congress immediately.

And then there's the greatest pension crisis of all: Social Security. We've stayed in denial thanks to the so-called trust fund, that magical place where the plan's annual surpluses are sent to be invested until we need them. But since those surpluses must by law be invested in government bonds, they have simply been handed over to the U.S. Treasury and spent by Congress.

The trust fund is in fact meaningless, a bit of marketing hooey cooked up in the '30s. When Social Security's annual surpluses end in just six or seven years, the battle over whose ox to gore in order to cover the plan's obligations will be truly epic.

The hard reality is that for decades we haven't told ourselves the truth about pensions. Now, as the first baby-boomers turn 60, we must finally confront reality -- and absolutely no one will like it. In New York last month, transit workers and management compromised; employees will make small contributions toward health insurance premiums but will keep one of the richest retirement deals around.

Soon those compromises simply won't be affordable. And that's when the pension wars will explode.

Ninjahedge

January 13th, 2006, 04:22 PM

The only solution is to make it so that pesnsions are somehow categorized into a more easily accountable expendature.

The main problem, like they said, is that people are living longer. What once was a retirement fund that would follow you for 5-10 years (75 years old or so) on AVERAGE, is now climbing to 15 years or more.

I don't know if it was on this board or another, but I suggested the changing of how pensions are awarded. Including both increased benefits AND time limits to the people that receive them based on not only how many years you work for the company, but how late you retire.

You retire at 55 (MTA, Cops) you get a limited number of years for the pension you get OR an unlimited pension at a lower rate.

You work past the bottom line requirement, you get less of a penalty for the lifetime benefit OR a higher rate for the limited one.

The key is to be able to have a solid $$ number that we can see and account for ahead of time instead of having the BB'ers all live to 95 years old....

But that will probably not do much for us NOW, with the fact that few companies or government agencies "saved up" money for this.

I think one of the only solutions would be to allow drastic increases in things like ROTH and 401K contributions. Regardless of how much that may entitle these people after retirement, or how much they might get paid, it would ease the burden on the nation if SS were to collapse.

JMGarcia

January 20th, 2006, 04:26 PM

TWU Members Reject Contract By Seven Votes
NY1
January 20, 2006

Transport Workers Union members have voted to reject their proposed contract with the MTA.

The union's membership rejected the contract by a slim margin, just seven votes. Around 22,000 of the 34,000 members voted. The final tally was 11,234 members against and 11,227 in favor of the proposed three-year deal.

TWU Local 100 President Roger Toussaint made the announcement this afternoon, one month after the transit strike that crippled the city.

Toussaint supported the contract, and blamed "downright lies" told by union members who opposed the deal for the results.

He added that TWU members were worried by Governor George Pataki's threat to veto a key $110 million refund of pension plan contributions.

Toussaint said the union was ready to resume negotiations with the MTA as soon as possible.

The MTA had no immediate comment on the vote.

Voting was conducted by phone and internet, it ended at noon today.

stache

January 20th, 2006, 08:03 PM

Sounds like a recount is in order. ; ]

NYatKNIGHT

January 24th, 2006, 11:55 AM

January 24, 2006

One Lesson of a Strike: Those Riders Will Walk

By SEWELL CHAN (http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=bylL&v1=SEWELL CHAN&fdq=19960101&td=sysdate&sort=newest&ac=SEWELL CHAN&inline=nyt-per)

WASHINGTON, Jan. 23 - It takes longer to get to work without the subways, no one disputes that. But just more than a month after a 60-hour transit strike crippled New York City, other lessons are becoming clear, according to data collected by city officials while the subways and buses were shut down.

Among the findings: The number of pedestrians entering Manhattan skyrocketed during the walkout; bicycles and ferries were not used as much as officials had expected; and vehicle restrictions - including a cordon that blocked cars with fewer than four occupants from entering Manhattan south of 96th Street for six hours each morning - may have been harsher than necessary.

While the transit strike of Dec. 20-22 was a nuisance for riders and a hardship for businesses, it also presented an opportunity to gauge how the habits of New Yorkers have changed since the last such walkout, in 1980. The new data suggest that New Yorkers are more inclined to walk than they were 25 years ago.

"It's not uncommon for New Yorkers to walk a mile a day," said Iris Weinshall, the commissioner of the city's Department of Transportation, who intends to release the research here on Tuesday, during the annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board, which is part of the National Research Council.

Ms. Weinshall said she considered the city's response to the strike a success, but noted, "In attempting to minimize congestion, perhaps we were more cautious than we should have been."

In particular, the morning traffic restrictions might have started too early (5 a.m., compared with 6 a.m. in 1980) and it was not necessary to make most bridge lanes Manhattan-bound in the mornings. Traffic was far more crushing in the afternoons and evenings, because people were generally entering Manhattan later and leaving later and because trucks delayed their deliveries until the early evening. The statistics showed fewer cars than normal coming into Manhattan, but more people in those cars, for a net increase in people entering the borough by car.

Throughout the strike, the department collected data using paid observers, traffic cameras and pavement sensors that detect the movement of vehicles on bridges and tunnels. Ms. Weinshall discussed key findings in an interview on Monday.

On average, more than 34,000 pedestrians walked over one of the four East River bridges into Manhattan, compared with only 2,000 or so per day normally.

Total pedestrian volume on the bridges from 6 to 10 a.m. was about 14,000 - about 14 percent higher than the 12,500 recorded during the 1980 strike.
On average, 11,717 bicycles crossed the East River bridges each day of the strike. From 6 to 10 a.m., the number of bicyclists on the bridges was 4,892, a 44 percent drop from 8,762 riders in 1980.

The city has far more bicycle lanes and paths than it did in 1980, but Ms. Weinshall said bicycling was a less-attractive option because of the cold weather. The 1980 strike began on April 1 and lasted 11 days.

The number of people entering Manhattan on private ferries jumped 50 percent, to about 9,000 passengers per day. However, usage of the city-run Staten Island ferry fell slightly during the morning rush, compared with 1980, when passengers there soared by 75 percent.

Ms. Weinshall said more Staten Islanders may have driven to Manhattan, but she acknowledged that many ferry riders were discouraged by a temporary rule blocking cars with fewer than four people from the parking lots around the terminal.

During the 1980 strike, cars with fewer than two occupants could not enter Manhattan from 6 to 10 a.m. During the 2005 strike, the restriction was raised to four occupants from 5 to 11 a.m. Over all, 19.2 percent fewer vehicles entered Manhattan during the three days of the strike compared with normal weekdays. But traffic entering Manhattan varied by time of day. It fell 45.1 percent from 5 to 11 a.m. and 24.4 percent from 1 to 8 p.m., but rose by 57.2 percent from midnight to 5 a.m.

Copyright 2006 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html)The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)