work in america

On skimming through Google News, Yahoo News, and even listening to NPR today, the mainstream media coverage of the NYC Transit Worker's Strike seems to be pretty biased in an anti-union direction. This maybe because most of the media folks now have to walk, bike, blade into work in the cold. It may also be because they are freelance writers who do not have benefits or workers with lousy benefits and cannot feel sympathy for those who actually do.

Those on strike face fines that start at $25,000 on the first day and double for every day thereafter. They might be jailed. Their union is being fined $1 million a day for every day they strike which will bankrupt them in about 4 days.

Don't you want to know why?
And shame on you Michael O'Brien of the Transit Worker's Union International for hanging the local 100 out to dry.

Positive views of this strike:
www.twulocal100.org
nycsupportstwu.blogspot.com
Beyond the Nickel and Dime
tothebarricades.blogspot.com blames the MTA
what the North eastern federation of anrachist communists think
Bill Fletcher Jr. : My Vote goes to the NYC Transit Workers!
Juan Gonzalez : Eventful Time for the Union
Confined Space : lives and deaths of ny transit workers
Confined Space: Blogging the Transit Strike
The Labor Blog : Against Slavery

For something a little less glowing but interesting:
commie curmudgeon : Credit to the T.W.U - As Far as it Goes

Okay, so there has not been a transit strike in NYC in 25 years.

The Transit Worker's Union Local 100 was negotiating a contract with the metropolitan transit authority (MTA which was running billion dollar surplus up until the time of the negotiations when it disappeared) The ins and outs of the negotiations are difficult to tease out. In the end the MTA brought in provisions in which future hires would pay a higher percentage of their salary towards benefits and take a 10 year pay cut. The TWU decided that this was unfair and that the MTA by bringing these changes to the final meeting at which they expected to sign the contract were negotiating in bad faith.

Seems to me that the media finger of blame is pointing in the wrong direction. It's the local 100's job to look after the interests of its members and that is what they are doing. It's Mayor Michael Bloomberg's job to look after the interests of his constituency, the people of NYC. It's Mayor Michael Bloomberg's job to make sure that the trains and buses are up and running in the city. That's why he got elected. It's his job to do everything that he can to ensure that the city does not lose $400 million dollars a day (a figure that incidentally the Goldman Sachs people think is greatly exaggerated.) Calling the transit workers thugs and greedy theives, running to the courts to fine the pants off of them, getting Judge Theodore T. Jones to threaten to jail them is hardly behavior that is conducive to meaningful negotiation. Negotiating a mutually beneficial labor contract, that's his job. Which at this moment he is not doing very well.

Unless he is doing this on purpose in an effort to destroy this union and to chip away the benefits of the city's unionized public employees into nothingness. Thumbs up, dude. And at the expense of the misery of the people of New York. Bonus.

If you live in NYC and you are pissed about the strike. Call the MTA 212-878-7274 and the Mayor 212-NEW-YORK or 311 and the governor 518-474-7516. They are supposed to represent your interests. Tell them what you want.

If you want the TWU to represent your interests elect Roger Toussaint as the next mayor of NYC.