IT'S ON- TWU STRIKES!!!!

escap wrote: Also, I have to admit I'm very cynical towards the TWU, but my sense is that they're not striking because they feel aggrieved. Everyone in the world feels aggrieved. The TWU is striking because it thinks it has leverage, because it thinks it can benefit from the strike. Everyone wants more $ and benefits, but we don't strike because we think it will hurt us. If we want to avoid future strikes, we should make sure the lesson the TWU learns this time around is that its interests are better served by not striking. If they gain benefits from this strike, on the other hand, we can pretty much bet on there being another strike the next time around, and the next, and the next.

I think the fact that all the unions in the city have come out in support shows that they are justified and have majorly tapped into the grievances of a lot of union workers, especially since they all note that the MTA trying to fiddle with the pension plan is illegal and troubling enough that the Public Employment Relations Board stepped in. And if there was a White Collar Workers Of America or something to be joined, corporations wouldn't get away with a lot of shit they do because of the collective voice to lead the aggravated muscle. The strike was a complete success because they threatened to throw a monkey wrench into one of the most lucrative times of the year to show the MTA, the city, and the state that they couldn't be ignored and they did it. Bloomberg and Pataki huffed and puffed and preened, but they proved themselves to be as ineffectual as anyone with any common sense knows they are. The pension issue is off the table and they're going back to work. And I'm willing to bet they get most -- if not, all -- of the things they originally asked for.

BrooklynSwordStyle wrote: Sorry Captain,

Expect your demotion to private to come through soon.

Where in your argument do you show how much to pay the sanitation workers? Saying there is a budget and a job does not complete the equation. You need to know how much to pay each person. Earlier in the thread you say it should not be hard to figure out how much to pay civil servants. Now you say it simply who will do the job at the "same pay". So what's the pay? How do you know how much to pay?

Dept of anitation has A routes
Each route needs B workers
Subtract from budget vehicles etc
budget/A/B = Z pay

If you cant get qualified people to do it for Z then the Dept needs more money. Just like in a business.

If you can only find one guy strong enough to lift the trash, willing to put up the smell, knows how to drive the truck (with a plow in the winter), is able to show up on time, and will do it with a smile on face.....well then you pay him whatever he wants... However many of the MTA jobs are not that impressive in requirements and rarely do they smile.

If they think their skills are that unique, lets let the market decide maybe they are right maybe they arent....oh wait strikes over.

Having worked in the ship industry I know for a fact that there are people who could and would be happy to do it for the old contract.

Also I guess I come from the school where raises are earned on good performance, not a right.


Dont worry about the snippet, it was funny you should put it back. While heated I feel discussion is necessary. Its not personal

BrooklynSwordStyle wrote: So from a high level economic view the city should put lots of garbage men in gentrifying neighborhoods and pull them from poor ones. But that would be a poor moral choice.

Doesn't work from a public health point of view either...

Candicissima wrote: [quote=Captain M]

However many of the MTA jobs are not that impressive in requirements and rarely do they smile.

Wow, Captain M, you sound like those guys I always run into in the street!

Candicissima rocks.

pitu wrote: [quote=BrooklynSwordStyle]So from a high level economic view the city should put lots of garbage men in gentrifying neighborhoods and pull them from poor ones. But that would be a poor moral choice.

Doesn't work from a public health point of view either...



Actually, that would work even better from an economic point of view. The poor places become so shitty to live in people leave, thus reducing strain on the city services. Of course it's not that simple, but that's the point.

You're missing the point. It's an exercise meant to point out how hard it is to figure out a value equation for city service workers.

Theoretically, if a place became shitty enough, filthy enough, and disease infested people would leave. You're telling me if a neighborhood in a first world country had no sewage service, no garbage service, and no other services, people would not walk away from it?

My second "fallacy" is the point! Of *course* the city devotes a lot of budget to poor areas! But from a strictly economic value based stand point this often doesn't make sense. Therefore I think we can safely say that the city values service workers in ways that are not strictly monetary.

Bringing this back full circle, the point is that while the city has to take a lot of stuff into account when valuing service workers, the hypothetical investment bank only has to take a hard line "does this guy make us money and how much" when figuring out what to pay their banker.

First, let me tell a joke.

A chicken farmer buys a prize rooster, one who everyone says is sure to set his hens into an egg laying frenzy the likes of which he's never seen. But it doesn't work. So he asks a doctor, a philosopher, and a physicist to come to his farm and take a look at the rooster and tell him what's wrong.

The doctor does a lot of tests on the rooster and tells the farmer that it's going to take a lot of drugs to get the chicken to perform as advertised.

The philosopher sits in the middle of all the chickens, then gets up and asks the farmer if he can actually be sure that they are in fact chickens, and not simply a projection from the mind of a greater being that does not understand the essential concept of "chickenness".

The Physicist takes one look at the rooster, then walks off to scribble on his note pad. He announces that he's solved the problem, but unfortunately it only works for a perfectly spherical rooster in a frictionless vacuum.


The situation I laid out could not exist in real life. It's the the word problem equivalent of all those physics problems where you could assume everything happened in a frictionless vacuum.

It's not about morality, or upward mobility, or escalade rims, or the price of moving vans or how much "real" poor people pay or do not pay in taxes versus how much they consume in terms of city programs.

It's all about abstracting things to try and make simple equations of value. It's not complicated to do that for lots of jobs. Bankers, programmers, waiters, bartenders, bouncers, etc. It's *really* complicated to do that for city services. This is the point I was trying to make, apparently poorly.

Firts let me say that I am not anti-union, but mostly pro-union. I think that they have achieved tremendous advances for millions of people both in terms of salaries and working conditions that would not otherwise have been achieved. I have no problems when GM workers walk out, or steel workers or or any one of a number of other trade union people. However this is different.

This is a long thread so forgive me if this has already been addressed but as I understand it the reason the strike is illegal under the Taylor law is because of a threat to public safety. Now it is easy to understand why police and fireman are not allowed to strike under this law but I don't think it is entirely obvious for the TWU. Recently both my wife and I have been dealing with some fairly serious illnesses, spending alot of time at doctors offices, hospitals and various medical testing sites. It is entirely clear to me now that the lack of public transportation poses a serious risk to the health of thousands of New Yorkers, something that I am not sure I would have comprehended before.

Anyone who is on dialysis, getting chemotherapy treatments, having radiation tratments for cancer or any one of a number of procedures which sometimes can, but many times cannot wait, could suffer serious consequences if they are not able to make an appointment, or if perhaps their nurses or other technicians (the people that operate CAT scans and MRIS's for example) can't get to work. The nature of illnesses what they are the majority of these people tend to be older and many very poor. Transportation other than through the MTA may not be an option.

When you are healthy you tend to be largely unawre of this population and what they go through on a daily basis. Once you are thrust into that world, and from what I have seen it is unfortunately a huge world, you gain a new perspective.

Like it or not Transit Workers are public servants and the Taylor Law is in place to protect those who would be severely harmed if public servants don't do their jobs. And the more I thought about it the more I agree with it. What happens if the workers at the water filtration plants go on strike, or the sewage treatment plants? How about meat inspectors or restaurant inspectors? Or the the people that process applications for unemployment benefits, medicare, welfare payments or food stamps?

I really think that some jobs just cannot be abandoned because they are to important to the public as a whole. Public employees know (or should know) this when they sign up. Many years ago I belonged to AFSCME in a public employee job and was very much aware that strikes were not permitted because we were public servants. Admittedly I didn't undertstand the full reasoning at the time (I was only 19) but with age comes wisdom and now I get it.

Dr. F's post is the real central issue as to why the strike was both illegal and immoral. The comparisons to Rosa Parks are outrageous!! She did not endanger public health. Her goal was civil rights, not more money. And she was born into that system, whereas each transit worker voluntarily agreed when they took their job not to strike. So please, everyone should stop disrespecting her by mentioning her in the same breath as the criminals who maliciously targeted poor and working class victims as hostages to achieve their economic goals.

Now, on the subject of their "worth", transit workers are worth an enormous amount to the city, no matter how you calculate it. Dollar for dollar, they probably all "deserve" several million dollars a year. But that's just one side of the equation. Taxpayers also deserve to have their $ used efficiently, so the MTA has an obligation to pay fair market wages--i.e., if two equally qualified employees are willing to work for two different amounts, the MTA should employ the cheaper option, and in general should set its wages at levels comparable to other similar jobs.

Candicissima wrote:

I think the fact that all the unions in the city have come out in support shows that they are justified and have majorly tapped into the grievances of a lot of union workers.

Call me a cynic, but I disagree. I think the unions came out in support because they want to make sure they get the money they want when it's their turn.

escap wrote: So please, everyone should stop disrespecting her by mentioning her in the same breath as the criminals who maliciously targeted poor and working class victims as hostages to achieve their economic goals.

Whoa, there, cowboy. That's quite an assertion. First of all, if they were "maliciously targeting poor and working class victims," they may as well just shoot them randomly on the subway cars. Which isn't that far, I guess, from what you've been claiming they might as well be doing, so far enough, you're consistent.

Second of all, a lot of poor and working class people are in favor of the strike. They are inconvenienced by it, but many are also union or wish they were. It seems to me (from my admittedly poor vantage-point) that most of the people belly-aching about this are people who have office jobs and are not allowed to telecommute. Whine whine whine. Get a frickin' bike.

Third of all, economic goals are perfectly worth striking for. It seems to me that the union was in the right here; that the demands the MTA slapped down only a little bit before the deadline were basically a provocation and completely illegal; and that the strike did what it was supposed to do, which was to convince the other city unions (which represent many many many people) that if they didn't win this, they would all lose their hard-earned pensions by fiat. Maybe they're greedy, uneducated bastards, but they're in the right (save for the whole illegal strike thing, which they are ALL going to pay through the nose for.)

It may not be Rosa Parks, but they're not "criminals maliciously" "targeting" and assaulting "poor and working-class" commuters, either. It does no good countering a completely unreasonable comparison by being completely ridiculous yourself.

Muteflute, you're right that many poor people supported this strike. But it doesn't change the fact that it was primarily poor people who suffered from the strike as well. Furthermore, that effect was intentional--Toussaint said "Why should we strike on Friday, when the fines will be the same but the economic impact less?" He purposely waited till the most vulnerable moment that would screw the most people before authorizing the strike. Knowing that people's health and jobs might be at stake, and that none of those people had anything to do with the pensions, is downright malicious.

The TWU's line was essentially, "Give us what we want, or we'll hurt all these other people." It is beyond me how a strategy like that can be characterized as "liberal", "moral", or justified in anyway. I understand that some of you may feel the need to support unions in general, but remember that the TWU's own parent union--hardly a bastion of corporate capitalism--condemned their actions. You say the union was right "save for the whole illegal strike thing", which means you pretty much agree with me--the strike was wrong.