These Boots Were Made for Walkin
There's also a lot of bullshit rhetoric flying about the place of unions, the relative evillness of the MTA, blah blah blah fairness cakes.
The reality is that the TWU is every bit as corrupt, political and self-serving as the MTA. The reality is that the union administrators are pulling in six figure salaries as compared to the actual train & bus operator's 60k a year. The reality is that in-fighting in the TWU is a major cause of where we are in the city today, and I'm not getting behind anybody's billion dollar office politic scrapping. The people being most hurt by this strike are not the city bigwigs, who can continue to drive their Range Rovers and Bentleys to work, with an inconvience of heavy traffic.
Rather, its the TWU members who will be fined two working days pay for every day of striking, and the millions of working poor in the city who don't have cars, can't get to work, and will either lose their jobs OR lose money as a direct result of the commercial revenue not being generated. Those six figure union admin people can take the two days's pay penalty with ease.
The rest of us are walking one and two hours to work in 20 degree weather.
I am generally a major supporter of unions, organized labor, and the fight for a good living wage.
The major sticking points of this strike are the MTA trying to raise the retirement age from 55 to 62 for new hires, and an 8 percent a year wage increase over the next three years.
First, 60k with great medical, dental, vacation and retirement is nothing to scoff at. Transit workers are paid much more than many professionals working jobs that require more skill and more education (IE teachers, social workers, and human services in general). I've NEVER in all my working years heard of an eight percent wage increase at one time, let alone eight percent every year for three years. Where will this increase come from? The billion dollar surplus the MTA has at the end of this year. Which means never mind the badly needed system improvements. And regarding retiring at 62, welcome to reality. Fewer and fewer places are offering a 55 year old retirement age, and really we don't need it. 55 was fine 50 years ago when the life expectancy was 65 or 70. Now people are living 20 and sometimes 30 years longer, and are in generally better health at 55 than we were decades ago.
The TWU is unreasonable and so is this strike.
It would be nice if both the MTA and TWU would take their corruption out in the back alley and duke it out themselves, rather than cripple an entire city at its busiest time of year. ¶ 1:53 PM
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
So, there's a mass transit strike in NYC. No buses, no subways. Gridlock.There's also a lot of bullshit rhetoric flying about the place of unions, the relative evillness of the MTA, blah blah blah fairness cakes.
The reality is that the TWU is every bit as corrupt, political and self-serving as the MTA. The reality is that the union administrators are pulling in six figure salaries as compared to the actual train & bus operator's 60k a year. The reality is that in-fighting in the TWU is a major cause of where we are in the city today, and I'm not getting behind anybody's billion dollar office politic scrapping. The people being most hurt by this strike are not the city bigwigs, who can continue to drive their Range Rovers and Bentleys to work, with an inconvience of heavy traffic.
Rather, its the TWU members who will be fined two working days pay for every day of striking, and the millions of working poor in the city who don't have cars, can't get to work, and will either lose their jobs OR lose money as a direct result of the commercial revenue not being generated. Those six figure union admin people can take the two days's pay penalty with ease.
The rest of us are walking one and two hours to work in 20 degree weather.
I am generally a major supporter of unions, organized labor, and the fight for a good living wage.
The major sticking points of this strike are the MTA trying to raise the retirement age from 55 to 62 for new hires, and an 8 percent a year wage increase over the next three years.
First, 60k with great medical, dental, vacation and retirement is nothing to scoff at. Transit workers are paid much more than many professionals working jobs that require more skill and more education (IE teachers, social workers, and human services in general). I've NEVER in all my working years heard of an eight percent wage increase at one time, let alone eight percent every year for three years. Where will this increase come from? The billion dollar surplus the MTA has at the end of this year. Which means never mind the badly needed system improvements. And regarding retiring at 62, welcome to reality. Fewer and fewer places are offering a 55 year old retirement age, and really we don't need it. 55 was fine 50 years ago when the life expectancy was 65 or 70. Now people are living 20 and sometimes 30 years longer, and are in generally better health at 55 than we were decades ago.
The TWU is unreasonable and so is this strike.
It would be nice if both the MTA and TWU would take their corruption out in the back alley and duke it out themselves, rather than cripple an entire city at its busiest time of year. ¶ 1:53 PM
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Actually, raising the retirement age to 62 is a big deal considering that over 50% of MTA workers die within 3 years of retirement. It's a dangerous and strenuous job, and raising the retirement age would mean that a whole lot of workers would die before getting a year or two to enjoy retirement.
And sure, they do have it better than other workers, but is that an argument to bring their living standards down to ours? Having fewer and fewer jobs with benefits makes it even less likely that anyone will have benefits because it lowers the "average" bar.
I don't intend to debate the relative corruptness of the MTA vs the TWU leadership. I think it was pretty inflammatory for the MTA to put the pension thing on the table when pensions are only supposed to be changed by the legislature in this case. I think it should raise suspicions about what the strike really meant to the folks with money to look at the way the media became the willing mouthpiece of the MTA.
The strike challenged the Taylor Law in a major way, which is a good thing for all city workers who's unions face weakened bargaining power because of the blatantly pro-management law. You mention teachers above; teachers in this city might have a better contract now if they had been willing to defy the Taylor Law in the same way the TWU did and many of them said as much when they were visiting the picket line. I think the next time their contract is in negotiation, they'll be more willing to consider the militancy that gets good contracts and decdent, living wages with good benefits.
I think there was more working class support for the TWU workers than you think. A lot of working class people realize that jobs like that with wages like that are ladders into middle class incomes that they have access to. I was at a picket line near where I live, and everyone who drove by honked in support. The fire department stopped by while I was there and dropped off a huge turkey and the folks said another fire truck had been by earlier with coffee and hot water for tea. Even the police assigned to guard the workers had words of support. I was waiting for a friend on a street corner and a woman passing by asked me where she could get a sticker like my "I Support the TWU Workers". We had a public meeting at St Mary's church on doing strike support and solidarity and raised money for a strike fund and drew a large crowd, and I know other unions have been donating money to a technically not a strike fund strike fund that's been set up to help pay for the fines.
Julie, you know I love you, but it is distressing to see an argument that is essentially "they have it better than me, they should be brought down a few notches" when the argument should be "they have it better than me- I should have more". Sure, many people lost 3 days worth of income or had to brave freezing weather to walk to work. But the societal shrink in real wages and the squeezing of the middle class has longer-term consequences that ultimately would amount to being worse for the working class. Working class people shouldn't support the race to the bottom.
And sure, they do have it better than other workers, but is that an argument to bring their living standards down to ours? Having fewer and fewer jobs with benefits makes it even less likely that anyone will have benefits because it lowers the "average" bar.
I don't intend to debate the relative corruptness of the MTA vs the TWU leadership. I think it was pretty inflammatory for the MTA to put the pension thing on the table when pensions are only supposed to be changed by the legislature in this case. I think it should raise suspicions about what the strike really meant to the folks with money to look at the way the media became the willing mouthpiece of the MTA.
The strike challenged the Taylor Law in a major way, which is a good thing for all city workers who's unions face weakened bargaining power because of the blatantly pro-management law. You mention teachers above; teachers in this city might have a better contract now if they had been willing to defy the Taylor Law in the same way the TWU did and many of them said as much when they were visiting the picket line. I think the next time their contract is in negotiation, they'll be more willing to consider the militancy that gets good contracts and decdent, living wages with good benefits.
I think there was more working class support for the TWU workers than you think. A lot of working class people realize that jobs like that with wages like that are ladders into middle class incomes that they have access to. I was at a picket line near where I live, and everyone who drove by honked in support. The fire department stopped by while I was there and dropped off a huge turkey and the folks said another fire truck had been by earlier with coffee and hot water for tea. Even the police assigned to guard the workers had words of support. I was waiting for a friend on a street corner and a woman passing by asked me where she could get a sticker like my "I Support the TWU Workers". We had a public meeting at St Mary's church on doing strike support and solidarity and raised money for a strike fund and drew a large crowd, and I know other unions have been donating money to a technically not a strike fund strike fund that's been set up to help pay for the fines.
Julie, you know I love you, but it is distressing to see an argument that is essentially "they have it better than me, they should be brought down a few notches" when the argument should be "they have it better than me- I should have more". Sure, many people lost 3 days worth of income or had to brave freezing weather to walk to work. But the societal shrink in real wages and the squeezing of the middle class has longer-term consequences that ultimately would amount to being worse for the working class. Working class people shouldn't support the race to the bottom.
# posted by 
: 3:45 AM, August 05, 2006
: 3:45 AM, August 05, 2006
Cat,
This is an old debate between you and I, starting years ago when we stumbled onto a debate about throwing bricks in Starbucks windows. Remember that? I don't think you and I will ever be on the same side of the aggressive tactics fence. I don't condone violence in the name of social change, I think social action can be provokative, positive and poignant without being destructive and counter-demonstrative.
Fortunately, the transit strike did not turn violent. I've seen strikes that have, and they're ugly and dehumanizing. My mother's hospital has played host to striking workers twice over the last 25 years. Both times the cleric and labor staff went on strike to negotiate better conditions. I felt both times the strike was justified, but the situation quickly degenerated into an ugly violent mess. Nursing and medical staff had to be bussed in from a remote location because picketing workers threw bricks into their car windows, nails into the road, and beat people with bats. Those were not scabs hired to do the absentee jobs. Those were medical professionals attempting to get into the hospital to care for the 2000+ ailing patients that had nothing to do with hospital politics.
Clearly, this is not the case with the transit worker's strike, but the point I was making in my previous post was NOT "they have it better than me, they should be brought down a few notches." The point was that the strike was not, in my opinion, an instrument of positive change for the transit workers. The leaders of the TWU are corrupt, as corrupt as the MTA. The people most hurt by the strike were the workers who now face fines of up to six days wages, still have no contract, and are pawns in the whole situation. To top it off, they were tried and lost in the court of public opinion. The strike hurt them more than it helped them. Roger Toussaint is a politician like any other politician who takes a backseat to the affects of the political decisions he makes. He hasn't been an actual transit worker since 1994; that's nearly 12 years ago and the decision to strike was not made in the best interest of the men and women he represents.
That's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it. It has nothing to do with what the transit workers, or any of us in the working world, do or don't deserve. It's about tactics, ones that in this case not only didn't work, but did harm.
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This is an old debate between you and I, starting years ago when we stumbled onto a debate about throwing bricks in Starbucks windows. Remember that? I don't think you and I will ever be on the same side of the aggressive tactics fence. I don't condone violence in the name of social change, I think social action can be provokative, positive and poignant without being destructive and counter-demonstrative.
Fortunately, the transit strike did not turn violent. I've seen strikes that have, and they're ugly and dehumanizing. My mother's hospital has played host to striking workers twice over the last 25 years. Both times the cleric and labor staff went on strike to negotiate better conditions. I felt both times the strike was justified, but the situation quickly degenerated into an ugly violent mess. Nursing and medical staff had to be bussed in from a remote location because picketing workers threw bricks into their car windows, nails into the road, and beat people with bats. Those were not scabs hired to do the absentee jobs. Those were medical professionals attempting to get into the hospital to care for the 2000+ ailing patients that had nothing to do with hospital politics.
Clearly, this is not the case with the transit worker's strike, but the point I was making in my previous post was NOT "they have it better than me, they should be brought down a few notches." The point was that the strike was not, in my opinion, an instrument of positive change for the transit workers. The leaders of the TWU are corrupt, as corrupt as the MTA. The people most hurt by the strike were the workers who now face fines of up to six days wages, still have no contract, and are pawns in the whole situation. To top it off, they were tried and lost in the court of public opinion. The strike hurt them more than it helped them. Roger Toussaint is a politician like any other politician who takes a backseat to the affects of the political decisions he makes. He hasn't been an actual transit worker since 1994; that's nearly 12 years ago and the decision to strike was not made in the best interest of the men and women he represents.
That's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it. It has nothing to do with what the transit workers, or any of us in the working world, do or don't deserve. It's about tactics, ones that in this case not only didn't work, but did harm.
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