Wednesday, December 14, 2005

46 Hours, 14 minutes... tick, tick, tick

The MTA agreement last negotiated over the spectre of a holiday time strike is about to go the way of the Subway token. While spending it's "Billion Dollar winfall" on free ten trip tickets for Metro North commuters and cut price Metrocards, the MTA seemed to forget its got a contract fight on its hands, and for once, at least not publicly, it cannot claim it doesn't have the money.

Because the shitty public sector labor law of New York State (for which the fine is double a day's pay for participating in a strike) is not enough for billionaire mayor, he's decided to file a suit against the workers of our public transit system. 25 thou the first day, and double it each day they're out on strike. Oh, and the union starts with a million dollar fine. Just think, if you double 25,000 enough times, you'll reach what that mayor spent on his re-election campaign.

My favorite passages from the Greenhouse piece are buried towards the end. The biggest slap in the face?:

"Earlier yesterday, the authority's finance committee voted to approve the budget for 2006, which calls for spending $700 million of this year's $1 billion surplus on a combination of pension payments, holiday fare discounts and security and service improvements."

They made this decision yesterday, folks. YESTERDAY! And they wonder why Roger Toussaint is breathing fire right now.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

The Transit Workers deserve a good raise, good pension, good healthcare and dignity on the job. The TA is completely spitting in the face of every working man in this city by offering a ridiculous contract.

When Mike was running unions got TONS of raises and they endorsed him, TWU endorsed Freddy and now their getting their payback from this A**hole Mayor we have. Be a man Mike! Grow some cojones and get to the table instead of as you put it "using rehtoric." This just continues to show how a billionaire mayor who never has had a union in his company treats people.

God help us all if he decides to run for higher office.

10:29 AM  
Blogger Ruby K said...

Amen, dear reader, Amen. He certainly took a less standoffish stance, say, in the Radio City Lock-out, where he actually pressured the Dolans to get back to the table.

10:39 AM  

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