[huntbytnkbel]

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.

[alfredtaniypnx]

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/ny...t_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.

[Pashtet]

...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.

[Juersdodfs]

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.

[Michmant]

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

[Xavier_Spinner_Wheels]

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.

[Sttim]

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



At Penn Station, police officers helped fill taxis with people going in the same direction.


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

[genna]

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.

[Dabdklwu]

Cabs With Strangers, and Other Ways to Work



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

[grattperret]

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