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Decision Time for Illegal NYC Transit Strikers
* Updated and bumped * (Updates at the bottom...)
Well, it's finally here. The last day of voting by the Transport Workers Union membership to ratify or reject the contract their leader Roger Toussaint negotiated for them. Toussaint, his fellow union thugs, and more than 30,000 MTA employees staged an illegal 3-day strike in December as leverage for the above-market terms of this contract (at a cost of hundreds of millions, if not more than a billion dollars to New York City), yet opposition has been bubbling within the rank and file.
The bone of contention: that workers will be required to contribute 1.5% of their gross wages toward health care costs.
That opposition bubbles away, despite the fact that Toussaint and his scofflaw cronies still face the very real threat of jail time for mounting the illegal strike (New York's Taylor Law makes it unlawful for public employees or employee organizations to participate in or condone a strike). A contempt hearing this morning before State Supreme Court Justice Theodore Jones was adjourned until some time after the voting has concluded.
Not without a sense of irony, union lawyers have indicated their defense will invoke... you guessed it: New York's Taylor Law.
Arthur Schwartz, a lawyer for the local, said the union will argue that it was provoked into a strike by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's insistence on a final contract offer that included pension changes. That would be a defense under the Taylor law, he said.
Under the Taylor Law, one side cannot make pensions a condition of a settlement. Still, in 1994 and 1999, the union and management agreed on pension changes.
Incidentally, the Taylor Law doesn't say anything about making an exception for unions who are "provoked". Toussaint and his cohorts who so brazenly, severely, and illegally injured New York for monetary gain still need jailing.
Previously:
Fat Lady Iced
What a Deal
Roger Toussaint's Billion Dollar Christmas Present
Back on Track
The [Unofficial] Not For Tourists Guide to NYC - Strike Edition
Strike 3 (Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $62,000)
Transit Strike Update
TWU Walks Out On New york
New Yorkers Behaving Like New Yorkers
T-Minus 1 Hour: Transit Union Walks Out
No Progress on Transit Negotiations
Bracing for Bedlam
Bloomberg Steps Up
New York's Looming Illegal Transit Strike
Update:
Let's play Jeopardy. The category is "Economic Travesties Wrought Upon New York City".
Answer: A million to one.
Question: What is the ratio of the number of New Yorkers stranded during the illegal transit strike to the number of votes by which ratification of the union's ill-gotten gains failed to pass?
To put it in local parlance: unbefreakinlievable.
Everyone please take your seats. The second act of New York's transit labor crisis will begin momentarily...
Elsewhere:
Urban Elephants, GOP and the City, A Blog for All
Refresher Course:
Handcrafted by Flip on January 20, 2006 |
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» The TWU Are a Bunch of Rejects from Gop and the City
The TWU membership rejected the proposal which was agreed to by the TWU and MTA leadership - ending the Transit Strike. The agreement failed by 7 votes! Out of 22,451 votes cast - 11,227 voted to accept the contract and 11,234 voted to reject it.
... [Read More]
Tracked on Jan 20, 2006 3:54:04 PM
» Hold Onto Your Hats... from A Blog For All
...it's also curious how strong the dissident group was - they were able to outmaneuver and outhustle Toussaint's effort to get this deal ratified. There's a power struggle underway at the TWU, and that battle will affect the outcome of the negotiati... [Read More]
Tracked on Jan 20, 2006 3:59:13 PM
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...and giving them all the attention I can muster on this, my vacation eve: - Eye on the UN is tracking anti-American bias at the U.N. (H/T: Powerline.) - Kieran Lalor, founder of the Eternal Vigilance Society, has organized a... [Read More]
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» Friday tidbits from Citizen Journal
...and giving them all the attention I can muster on this, my vacation eve: - Eye on the UN is tracking anti-American bias at the U.N. (H/T: Powerline.) - Kieran Lalor, founder of the Eternal Vigilance Society, has organized a... [Read More]
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Comments
The media made it sound like the TWU dissidents were only a handful of radical members of the union. This is a surprise to say the least.Posted by: the man | Jan 20, 2006 3:59:42 PM
Here's a question: You covered the union strike in NY extensively, but much less was said about the WV coal mine disaster. You show ZERO sympathy for unions. You show zero sympathy for the working class. Unions and their accompanying legislation allowed for safer work environments. If you had a blog back then, you would certainly be arguing for business' rights and bashing the working class. Now, labor is fighting an economic war. It's elevated from the safety concerns (not that these concerns don't still creep up) and they are fighting for equality as the gap between the rich and middle class gets wider. Don't be so arrogant in the future and so one-sided in your story coverage. Until that happens, you are nothing but a corporate shill.Posted by: TomKat | Jan 20, 2006 6:57:19 PM
A couple thoughts, Tomkat. I live in NY, not in WV. The City of New York, politics, and the economy are the three stated areas of focus of my blog. The MTA-TWU labor dispute hits all three. This strike was not a normal strike; it was an illegal strike, in which union bosses used the financial well-being of their members, their employer, and their entire city (a key engine of creation for the national economy) as leverage for monetary gain. The forseeable and inevitable consequences were financial damage, injuries, even preventable deaths. These all came to pass, each directly or indirectly attributable to the illegal actions of a workforce already enjoying far better benefits and pay with lower levels of education than their publicly employed counterparts in fields like health and education. And incidentally, their employer, the MTA, is not a corporation but a government agency, so it's not quite right to call me a corporate shill. It is right to say I have zero sympathy for this union, however. As the most recent negotiations inched toward resolution, we heard time and again that the *real* issue being taken up was the MTA's lack of "respect" for its employees. Well, the TWU and its members (all that struck, anyway) showed just how devoid they are of respect for their fellow New Yorkers, when they broke the law, cost us gargantuan sums of money, and put vulnerable New Yorkers (most notably our emergency workers and the elderly) at undue and preventable risk. Shame on them. If they try it again, I hope Pataki fires the lot of them.Posted by: Flip | Jan 20, 2006 7:16:35 PM
You are based in New York and have a picture of you against the city, but it is also a national blog. As you say, "The City of New York, politics, and the economy are the three stated areas of focus of my blog". Where does it say that? It says at the top, "On Money, Politics, and life's other frivolities." You cover the alito hearings and bash pelosi and kennedy, so don't hide behind your minimal coverage of a massive tragedy in West Virginia because you aren't geographically near them.Posted by: TomKat | Jan 20, 2006 8:35:15 PM
Alas, I concede, I do blog about national issues as well. Especially when they involve "money and politics". Please consider the locus of my blog to be the union of those three topics, not the intersection. I'm not certain how the WV mine disaster qualifies as any of the three, but then again, I do from time to time blog about things that stray from any of the stated topics (which, if you're interested, would actually more accurately include all 18 of the "Categories" listed in the sidebar). Still, as I didn't feel I had anything novel to contribute to the conversation, I didn't contribute. Back to the topic at hand, I don't think my absence from that dialogue precludes me from opining on the NYC transit strike. Either way, for now, let's hope for the safe recovery of these two miners: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1527654Posted by: Flip | Jan 20, 2006 10:05:38 PM
TomKat writes, "Here's a question..." to open many declarative lines of pure, inattentive drivel. I'm sorry, where's the question, again? Your rant is the only thing that begs a real question: how is your own rambling logical? You make about as much sense (and touch on as much relevance) as, well, a bloated, manslaughtering Massachusetts senator "questioning" a qualified, conservative judicial appointee.Posted by: STP | Jan 21, 2006 12:03:04 AM
