Strike shuts down NYC transit system

[__Kratos__]

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Under threat of legal action, more than 30,000 New York City transit workers went on strike early Tuesday, shutting down the nation's largest public transportation system just days ahead of Christmas.

"Transit workers are tired of being underappreciated and disrespected," said TWU President Roger Toussaint. "The Local 100 executive board has voted overwhelmingly to extend strike action to all MTA properties immediately."

According to Ainsley Stewart, a Transit Workers Union vice president, the walkout was called after the executive board for the TWU rejected an offer made late Monday by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The vote was 28 to 10 with five abstentions, Stewart said.

MTA President Peter Kalikow responded quickly and forcefully, threatening the union with legal action under the Taylor Law, which forbids public employees from walking off the job.

"The TWU's action today is illegal and irresponsible," he said. "This blatant violation of the Taylor Law and the judge's injunction is slap in the face to all MTA customers and all New Yorkers."

A New York judge last week issued a preliminary injunction barring the transit union from staging a strike.

The Taylor Law allows for a fine of two days pay' for each day of a illegal strike.

Kalikow said New York's attorney general and MTA lawyers would begin contempt proceedings against the union.

With the strike announcement, members of the Transit Workers Union (TWU) began shutting down the city's trains, buses and subways, affecting more than 7 million people who use the system on a typical day.

"As always, Local 100 members will meet our responsibility for the safety of our riders, for the safety of all transit workers, and for the safe maintenance of the equipment we will use when we get a fair contract and return to work," a statement on Web site for TWU Local 100 said.

"Local 100 members shall make sure that the subways are buses are shut down safely and efficiently at the beginning of the strike. Local 100 members shall then make sure that the system stays shut down for the duration of the strike."

'Illegal and morally reprehensible '

City officials have said a transit strike could cost the city as much as $400 million a day.

The union's strike announcement angered New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

"Tonight, Roger Toussaint and the TWU have taken the illegal and morally reprehensible action of ordering a citywide strike of our mass transit system," Bloomberg said.

"For their own selfish reasons, the TWU has decided that their demands are more important than the law, the city and the people they serve," the mayor added.

Bloomberg said a previously drawn-up contingency plan would be in effect for Tuesday morning's rush hour. That plan calls for the designation of HOV lanes, the establishment of police checkpoints and the adoption of a new fare structure for taxis.

The mayor also said the city would be joining the MTA in requesting an emergency hearing in front of Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Theodore Jones.

"We will seek to show that the TWU is in contempt of the court's earlier injunction and ask the court to impose severe fines on the union and its members," Bloomberg said.

New York Gov. George Pataki echoed Bloomberg's sentiments, saying the union has "broken the trust of the people of New York."

"They have not only endangered our city and state's economy, but they are also recklessly endangering the health and safety of each and every New Yorker," he said.

Issues: Wages, pensions, benefits

A partial strike began Monday -- more than 700 workers at a pair of private New York bus lines walked out, impacting some 50,000 commuters in Queens.

Hours before the strike, Toussaint said transit workers were prepared to lower their wage increase demands to below 6 percent if the MTA agreed to reduce the number of disciplinary actions launched against transit workers and grant other concessions.

The workers had been asking for an 8 percent annual wage increase.

Toussaint also chastised Pataki for threatening transit workers on television.

Pataki has pointed out that state law forbids strikes by public employees and that a transit walkout would be illegal.

"We do not appreciate being threatened on public television nonetheless and in front of our children, " Toussaint said. "Even if the governor needs this to appear to be tough to the nation for his own political ambitions, it's inappropriate."

Toussaint called on Pataki and Bloomberg to play a constructive role in the negotiations and restore state and city funds to the mass transit budget.

"If Gov. Pataki wants to play a constructive role he should get involved in these negotiations, and he should restore money to mass transit because ... the state government has taken out funds from mass transit ... (state funding) has gone down from 20 percent 10 to 15 years ago, to zero for capital funding," Toussaint said.

There were also signs that TWU workers will get the support of union leaders for Metro-North railroad, the second-largest commuter railroad in the country which shuttles some 250,000 commuters in and out of Manhattan every day.

The leaders of the TCU System Board No. 86 signaled their solidarity with workers on the MTA system but stopped short of threatening to strike in concert with them.

Russell Oathout, general chairman of No. 86, complained that his members also have been unsuccessful in negotiating a contract for its members for three years.

"A similar situation is in store for the MTA's Metro-North property if a fair agreement is not reached," Oathout warned in a news conference.

Union leaders and the MTA negotiated Sunday but those talks did not produce any agreement with key issues such as health benefits, pensions and wages remaining on the table.

Source

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What a load of crap.

[Super Pancake]

This is very annoying, My finals were canceled today I pay good money for my education.

Feck this city, Feck the mayor, Feck the govenor, feck theTWU, and Feck the mother fecking MTA $2.00 a bus ride is stealing.

[I am me]

This is very annoying, My finals were canceled today I pay good money for my education.

Feck this city, Feck the mayor, Feck the govenor, feck theTWU, and Feck the mother fecking MTA $2.00 a bus ride is stealing.

I think you should be saying fu<k the people on strike. They are the ones who chose not to work today. The MTA is also charging quite a bit, but you are willing to pay it and it seems like the strikers want even more money, so they don't seem to care how much you pay for a bus ride either.

[Purplos]

So they've decided to close down NYC's transportation services because they are getting a 6% raise instead of an 8% raise? And because they were embarrassed on television for being such nit-picking boobs?

[DR. YO]

That sucks, it really does. Look on the bright side, crime on subways have droped today. LOL

[Super Pancake]

I actually feel for the TWU except for the engineers 100,000 is enough money.

[I am me]

I actually feel for the TWU except for the engineers 100,000 is enough money.

Why do you feel for the TWU??? They do not need a 4 year degree to do what they are doing yet look at what they get paid. They may live in NYC where the cost of living is quite high, but look at what they are doing...just driving a bus or a train. It cannot be that hard. You can hire just about anybody to do that!

[Super Pancake]

So does it mean that they should be paid barely enough to live? Anyway last I checked they were not arguing about money anyway its more about benefits. The TWU president was not satisfied in regards to health care, pensions, etc.

Yeah its annoying that bus drivers and Train operators (and train operators is not that easy of a job) should be the last of city workers to strike, but hey people got make a living and stand up for what they want.

Edited December 20, 2005 by Super Pancake

[I am me]

So does it mean that they should be paid barely enough to live? Anyway last I checked they were not arguing about money anyway its more about benefits. The TWU president was not satisfied in regards to health care, pensions, etc.

Yeah its annoying that bus drivers and Train operators (and train operators is not that easy of a job) should be the last of city workers to strike, but hey people got make a living and stand up for what they want.

Well they are screwing everybody in NYC by doing it. Talk about being selfish. Benefits are part of what they are receiving for work being done. It is all payment for work. These guys make more than enough money to live. They all voluntarily decided to take the job and now they want to screw the company and everybody in NYC, especially in the week leading up to Christmas!!! They are also all breaking the law by striking in this circumstance. Like I said, if they were all fired there would be people breaking down the doors to get their resumes in for those jobs. Nobody would take the jobs if they were not paying enough to begin with. Remember, a job is a voluntary agreement between two parties, these union members were not forced to take these jobs for the wages that they were given.

[Super Pancake]

No they can't be fired it would take a week to fire just one of them and these jobs do have requirements and training, not any Joe can get them. So it could take months maybe a year to get 30,000 new workers to get the transit system back running at full capacity.

Yeah its illegal for any city worker to strike and an inconvenience to the public. But its just me If you feel your getting cheated out of your means of living by all means go for it STRIKE.

Are we commies now nobody is allowed to strike on city/state jobs.

[__Kratos__]

N.Y. transit union fined $1 million a day

NEW YORK, Dec. 20 (UPI) -- Millions of New Yorkers struggled to get home Tuesday night even after a state judge imposed a $1 million-a-day fine on the striking transit union.

The judge also said he would consider $1,000 fines against each member of the union leadership, The New York Times reported.

The newspaper said there was no immediate indication that the ruling would get mass transit moving again.

New York City's 6,300 subway cars and 4,600 buses were idle Tuesday morning as Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union went out on strike.

Although the strike is illegal under state law, the union decided to pull its 37,000 members from service over the issue of pension and health benefits for future employees, the Times reported.

Some 7 million people ride the on the system every weekday.

The union's executive board voted 28 to 10, with five members abstaining, to start the strike.

At 3:25 a.m., Peter Kalikow, the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said the authority and the state attorney general would go to state court to seek a contempt citation against the union.

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 during the morning rush.

Source

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Those idiots are costing the city 400 million a day but are only getting fined 1 million a day?!

[Lord Umbarger]

WOW!!! So many people have had thier lives disrupted by this strike. I wonder if this is any indication of how important they are to the function of the city? Any idiot can drive a bus, once he learns how. Any idiot can can become mayor, with no real qualifications. Some would say the same of the President.

If any idiot can do it, prove it. You go do it. It would seem that there are driverless buses available at the moment. I wonder what the percentage of people in NYNY with a legal drivers license is? Can just anyone do it? Maybe. Will anyone do it? Obviously not. Ever wonder why?

In my home town there is a shortage of police officers. There are currently thirty positions open. Decent pay, "everyone knows" that cops do very little work, why so many vacancies? The public demands that not just anyone be a cop. There are requirements.

BTW, there is a precedent to fire them. Pres. Ronald Reagan fired all the air traffic controllers in the early 1980's I guess the mayer of NYNY could do something similar. It would be entirely unfiar but, somebody somewhere would find a way to make it legal.

[__Kratos__]

^ That would be a lot of people to fire. Plus, once they did that... it would take weeks to hire new people, training and screening.

New Yorkers face second day without mass transit

NEW YORK (CNN) -- New Yorkers are awaking Wednesday to the second day of a public transit strike, with no sign of workers returning despite $1 million-a-day fines slapped on their union by a judge.

The strike began Tuesday, forcing millions of commuters to battle their way to work and then home in frigid temperatures. The walkout is the first for the city's transit system since 1980.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg lashed out at union leaders for "thuggishly" turning their backs on the city, and he vowed no further contract negotiations until the strike ends.

"You can't break the law and use that as a negotiating tactic," he said at an afternoon news conference. "This is unconscionable."

Judge Theodore Jones ruled Tuesday afternoon that the Transport Workers Union was in contempt of two court injunctions ordering it not to strike, and he ordered that the union be fined $1 million a day beginning Tuesday.

New York's "Taylor Law" forbids transit workers from striking, and the city and state had pressed the judge to impose a hefty fine.

Jones issued his ruling more than 12 hours after 30,000 New York City transit workers walked off the job in an action unsanctioned by the international arm of their labor union. The strike shut down the nation's largest public transportation system just days ahead of Christmas. (A map for the transit strike)

Workers are striking for higher pay and have taken issue with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's plans to require new transit workers to pay more for their health care.

Arthur Schwartz, an attorney for the Transport Workers Union, said he plans to file an appeal. He added that the union, as of December 2004, had about $3 million in assets.

Ainsley Stewart, vice president of Transit Workers Union Local 100, told CNN Tuesday night that TWU officials don't plan to meet any earlier than Wednesday. And it could be Friday morning before they convene, he said.

Michael Cardozo, an attorney for the city, said employees on strike will lose three days of pay for every day they are not at work. Prosecutors said individual leaders and union officers could be hit with a fine of up to $1,000 a day.

Bloomberg urged the union's members to return to work as soon as possible and, drawing a hard line, said the city would not negotiate with the union until then.

The strike brought to a grinding halt all Metropolitan Transportation Authority buses and subways throughout the city. The system averages about 7 million passengers on weekdays. (Read how the strike forced commuters to think on their feet)

City officials have said a transit strike could cost the city $440 million to $660 million a day.

Bloomberg said the strike affects everything from the restaurant and hotel industries to working-class New Yorkers who could lose their jobs as a result of the strike.

"The economic consequences of the strike range from severe to devastating, depending on the business," he said. (Read about the economic impact)

Traffic clogged all of Manhattan's inbound bridges and tunnels early Tuesday in spite of a city mandate allowing only cars with four or more people entering the borough and traveling below 96th Street. Schools started two hours late. (See images from Tuesday's commute and strike)

Differing views

In announcing the work stoppage, Roger Toussaint, president of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, said, "Transit workers are tired of being underappreciated and disrespected."

One commuter said he sympathized with the transit workers, according to The Associated Press.

"I try to put myself in their shoes," Matthew Higgs told the AP. "The only way you can get what you want is to take a stand.

"These guys work every day. ... Why shouldn't their kids have good health care? Why shouldn't their kids be able to go to college?"

Another commuter was less generous.

"I think they all should get fired," Eddie Goncalves, a doorman trying to get home after his overnight shift, told the AP. He said he'll likely spend an extra $30 per day in cab and train fares, according to the AP.

The mayor joined hundreds of other New Yorkers as he walked across the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan on Tuesday morning.

New York Gov. George Pataki chastised union members for "recklessly endangering the health and safety of each and every New Yorker."

Union's international arm doesn't approve

An attorney for the Transport Workers Union's international arm told a court in Brooklyn on Tuesday that the local's decision to strike was not approved and, therefore, unauthorized.

Attorney Peter DeChiara said Transport Workers Union International President Mike O'Brien attended the union vote overnight and urged Local 100 members not to strike.

Attorneys for the international arm of the Amalgamated Transit Union said the group did not authorize the strike, either.

Arguing on behalf of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, State Assistant Attorney General James Henley said that the state would withdraw its contempt charges against the international arms of the unions if they officially notify the local that its strike is unauthorized.

DeChiara said the Transport Workers Union's international arm would post the message on its Web site and in its newspaper and issue a statement to the media.

Source

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Guess if they can afford a million bucks a day...

[Michelle]

I'm glad we had to change our plans about going to NY for Christmas...I can't imagine.

[Super Pancake]

You'll just be walking or paying $15-$30 cab rides. The Horror!

This guy walked from Harlem to Bed Stuy to get to work today that is one tough guy.

[I am me]

No they can't be fired it would take a week to fire just one of them and these jobs do have requirements and training, not any Joe can get them. So it could take months maybe a year to get 30,000 new workers to get the transit system back running at full capacity.

Yeah its illegal for any city worker to strike and an inconvenience to the public. But its just me If you feel your getting cheated out of your means of living by all means go for it STRIKE.

Are we commies now nobody is allowed to strike on city/state jobs.

Striking has nothing to do with communism. If the job was not paying them the money they wanted then why take the job in the first place? If they did not want the money, they could always look for other jobs that pay more.

Oh I am sure there is some sort of training that goes on for these people. Just about everybody gets trained for their job, even burger flippers at McDonalds.

Nobody deserves anything. Strikes are just fine and great as long as the company has the option to fire them for doing so without pay. I bet if these people were fired they would be begging for their jobs back.

[gollo]

Hmm.......

Yet again people in management, who give themselves double digit pay rises every year on top of six figure saleries, don't understand why the people who work for them would like to see a bit of the $1 billion profit.

While you might not agree with the strike, the actions of the management should also be called into question. If there isn't enough money for a pay rise or enough money to pay for healthcare costs, are they doing their job properly?

[Lord Umbarger]

This kind of reminds me of Delta. They are demanding thta teh pilots take a pay cut but, just last year the ceo's gave themselves a nice fat raise. Now that the airline can't pay its bils, they want the pilots to take it on the chin. If only a few of the top dogs at Delta would've refused the pay hike, the company would not be in trouble now. That is the apitamy of cooporate greed.

I wonder how much money the city leaders in NYNY line thier pockets with from the transportation services? I would bet that the workers could be given a 20% raise if the city leaders bit the bullet.

There should be a law that states that the CEOs of an organisation can only make 400 times what the average employee makes. If that law were enacted, you'd see a lot of pay increases across the nation.

[Super Pancake]

The strike ended this afternoon, but I don't think they got what they want.

Anyway busses should be in full service sometime tomorrow, trains may take a while some say a week.

[julianpenrod]

Julian Penrod

4 Fairfield Avenue

West Caldwell, New Jersey 07006

(973) 220-1601

julianpenrod@comcast.net

December 24, 2005

Letters to the Editor

Dear sirs:

There can be many levels to an issue, and, unless you look at all of them, you cannot necessarily be said completely to understand it.

It goes without saying that the recent strike by the Transit Workers Union in New York unleashed a literal barrage of venom and contempt from high and influential places. By one count, Mayor Bloomberg's intonation of the phrase "illegal and selfish" to describe the strike, in one speech alone, reached at least 20. So much so that it appeared he was less commenting than almost trying a kind of subliminal suggestion technique. A runner-up in repetitiveness was "thuggish". The New York Post savaged what vestige of benefit of the doubt remained about their being anything even approaching legitimate. Editorials and even what the Post calls "news" articles used words like "frauds", "outlaws", "immoral", "villians", "teacherous", "insane", "extortionist", "asinine" and "joker". They also severely jeopardized any attempt to call them a legitimate newspaper after a stunt of posting a picture on the front page of one issue, doctored to represent union leader Roger Toussaint behind bars! Their role as a paid shill for corporate criminality was demonstrated in a stunt involving public opinion on the strike. With polls in general showing public support for the strike, the Post apparently engineered a project they termed a "poll" which, they claimed, showed better than 72% public opposition to the decision by the transit workers union. In what they evidently felt was a precious touch to follow this up, they gleefully published an article that described emails to a union website as condemning the strike by almost exactly the same margin! It is often taken to be the case that venues such as email to a specialty website cannot be trusted to provide results generally close to a "scientific poll". The results of the purported write-ins to the union website suggests something eminently sinister. Namely that the Post itself engineered an email writing campaign to fraudulently tilt the numbers on the union site! And that would qualify not only to brand the Post as a liar, but also, as an unacknowledged tool of right wing political machinations! FOX News Network did itself no better by its apparently having gone out of its way to present a bar that supposedly charged members of the transit union $1.00 more per drink, to make up for the business they supposedly cut off in the city, after which the "newsmen" at the station laughed about the item! If it involved a member of a protected minority, that would qualify as discrimination, and be a criminal act! Yet, because it evidently served right wing agendas, the members of FOX News behaved with apparently malevolent glee in presenting it!

Far from the specifics surrounding the matter, though, the strike has served to demonstrate, in miniature, what appears to be an overall unethical, when not overtly criminal, policy toward the "rank and file", on the part of corporate America and their evident co-conspirators, if not whores, the politicians, lawmakers and judges!

An essential facet of right wing manipulation of employee relations, it appears, is denying them all rights and, following on the heels of that, reducing them to effective if not literal slavery. Reagan Era dealings with unions is an eminent display of contempt for worker rights. The Bush Labor Department followed up on Reagan’s legacy by issuing a pamphlet for employers on, effectively, how to stiff employees out of reimbursement for overtime pay. It says a lot that Republican and corporate chieftain, Nelson Rockefeller, oversaw the state of New York when they passed the, frankly, infamous Taylor Law, invoked incessantly during the transit workers strike. Effectively a violation of the principle of workers rights that is supposed to be a fundamental of the United States, the law stipulates that it is illegal for city and state employees to go out on strike. Basically, if the city or state wanted to deny workers legitimate pay raises - because politicos and their cronies need public funds too much to feed their drug and sex addictions! - workers were required to accept being effectively going unpaid for work done!

There is a bizarre synergy in this. It seems to form a depraved sibling for another evident act of federal corruption, namely, privatization. Over the last few decades, also since the Reagan Age, an essential agenda for government has been to increasingly place formerly federal responsibilities into the hands of private corporations. Obviously, this represents a fat contract for the corporation that has bribed lawmakers enough, and it seems to promise them enormous amounts of otherwise illegal business latitude. There is a more disturbing aspect to this, however. Largely unacknowledged is the fact that what are called “Constitutional rights” extend to only a portion of the country! Full Constitutional guarantees extend only to those areas under federal auspices. There are a raft of liberties that the government permits to be restricted on business properties. They threaten to get in the way of corporations making money and, no matter what they say, even Democrats seem to feel that the country exists solely to allow big business to make money! As a result, employers are allowed to deny workers the right to fully free speech, free assembly, and a variety of other rights, on business premises! Only those areas still fully controlled by government allow full Constitutional rights, however! But, as privatization continues and expands, at the same time, full coverage by Constitutional rights continues to shrink! In a government entirely privatized, the degree of citizens’ rights will be entirely up to the discretion of the crook whose business controls each particular area! Privatization is an encroaching abridgement of what the public are, evidently fraudulently, told are ”guaranteed rights”! Much as the Taylor Law represents the eliminating of the purported right to decent working conditions! It is an assault on rights from both directions. Business is permitted to override “federally ensured liberties” while, at the same time, government intrudes into what is supposed to be the business-related area of employment negotiations, limiting union rights there!

Of course, denying citizens the right to strike for decent wages runs the risk of infuriating the rest of the public, and possibly convincing them that government and big business exist only to rape the people. Turning the public against strikers, then, is crucial to their machinations. If they can turn the public against each other, it makes it all the easier for them to rape the public! And that, the combined armada of the MTA, government and even the media set out to do, during the strike! Incessantly playing up that the strikers were “breaking the law” was only part of it, but a potent part. Carefully left unacknowledged was the evident quisling nature of the act of voting that employees of government are denied the very privilege of striking for their rights that government pretends to endorse! The issue of principled response to patently unethical, even palpably immoral, laws was determinedly ignored! Only the fact that what the public are apparently ordered to see as their lords and masters had passed something called the Taylor Law, effectively reducing transit workers to the level of slaves, and, solely on the basis of that - and forget all that garbage about the United States supposed to be about “human rights! - they had no choice but to shut up and allowed themselves to be raped! That’s the law!

Working on the basis of calling the strikers “lawbreakers”, the unholy triad of MTA, New York City and media whores proceeded to denounce the strike utterly! They built, largely, on the idea of the inconvenience the strike caused the public, apparently calculating the public to be as fundamentally self-serving and craven as they are, the MTA, New York government and the media then raised that inconvenience to the level of a compounding “sin”! Their “argument” was that it didn’t make any difference that the strikers were trying, among other things, to protect their families, to get decent recompense for their work and to keep evident drug fiends from milking the entire population of funds, to feed their addictions! The fact that the strike forced people to walk, they said, was the only thing to be considered! Gambling that the public - or, at least, the depraved sub-species that resonated to their assertions - would be as completely vicious as they evidently were, the MTA, New York government and the media proceeded to paint the issue solely in terms of the riding public thinking only about their own wants and whims! They called the strikers “greedy”, because they wanted to encourage the ridership to care only about themselves and call the strikers “greedy”, too!

For those apparently not as weak-minded as those the government of New York aimed their verbal attacks on the strikers at, those who withstood Bloomberg’s evidently calculatedly misrepresentative and unethical denunciations, the city cobbled up another tactic intended to try to turn them against the transit union members. This took the form of Bloomberg’s apparently deliberately and unnecessarily inconveniencing “alternative plans”. They involved allowing no car into the city between 6:00 a.m., and 11:00 a.m., unless they carried at least four people; not allowing commercial vehicles into the city below 96th Street, between 6:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.; and setting up huge, but evidently deliberately mishandled, “staging areas”! The city’s “contingency plans” seem intended to make the situation so utterly unpleasant for commuters that it would drive them to hate the strikers! Where this isn’t a corrupt machination to subvert popular opinion, it constitutes a criminal case of wanton abuse of the riding public!

For that matter, too, Bloomberg’s action against commercial vehicles was eminently questionable, if not downright actionable! He claimed trying to “control congestion” by refusing cars without four or more riders. If the commuters who normally took mass transit all drove their own cars, it would represent a massive addition of traffic. But the number of commercial vehicles was no different than before! There is no way that allowing the commercial vehicles in, between 6:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. would cause congestion! This move seems intended to try to turn businesses against the strikers, but, in the end, it seems to have done businesses more damage than the slowdown of customers!

They “argued” to the straphangers that the “greed” of the strikers was wrong, essentially, because it got in the way of the greed that they wanted the straphangers to feel, for themselves! A desire for decent working conditions was defined as “selfishness”, while the disinterest in the welfare of workers, as long as you could ride in comfort, was defined as “the legitimate wishes of the straphangers”! Strikers, the MTA, New York and the media suggested, had no right to be concerned for their own welfare, because it got in the way of the selfish wants of that portion of the public the MTA, New York and the media wanted to draft to their cause! They compounded this by bringing in the issue of revenue loss for the city. Even conservative estimates put it at tens of millions of dollars, every day. And, to be sure, much of that would be lost by small business owners, or employees of impacted big businesses. And, again, it was these the triad appealed to, to turn them against the strikers! The MTA wasn’t in the wrong for apparently greedily refusing to meet legitimate contract demands; the union was wrong for taking action to try to obtain those legitimate demands! And, again, because it cost members of the “rank and file” money, due to the work stoppage. And, because the MTA wasn’t in the wrong for evident callous refusal to meet demands, it was intended, the union would be seen as being in the wrong for keeping the strike going! The MTA was just as willing to let small businesses starve by refusing to relent to union demands, but the apparent whores in media steadfastly refused to broach that aspect of the issue! Instead, the union was called “cruel” for letting small businesses be impacted, they were called “greedy” by inflicting the inconvenience that struck, for the most part, only the “rank and file”! The CEO’s, who seemed to be counting on this apparently to break the back of unions, once and for all, rode around in heated comfort in limousines, paid for by money apparently stolen from their workers, the way the MTA evidently steals from both their employees and the riding public! The fact that imposing pressure to circumvent an intractable thug, such as the MTA seems to be, is a legitimate tactic of standard negotiation, and the fact that the inconvenience on the public was supposed to inspire them to put pressure on government, not the union, was also determinedly left unmentioned by the media!

In the end, a strike against the corporation thieving from them did inconvenience the public. Indeed, any strike, by any union, against a company that’s trying to rape its members, will inconvenience some members of the “rank and file”. It can also represent a loss of monetary flow for the criminal CEO’s, too, but they don’t dare prate on that, since it would bring the issue of their evident craven corruption and greed to the fore! Instead, they pretend to sympathize with the discomfort it causes the “rank and file”. Of course, if the “rank and file” don’t have the obscene price for a product that the CEO’s demand, to feed their heroin addiction, they cause the “rank and file” the same discomfort, by denying them the product! But government lets them do that! Haven’t you realized, yet, that the sole purpose of government is to help the rich get richer? CEO’s refusing to allow the “rank and file” to have their product is legitimate and protected; unions denying providing that product to the public is called “illegal”! And the unions withholding the product from the “rank and file” seems the only aspect that the media cover, disparagingly! While the CEO’s pretend to be upset about the public being denied the same product they would withhold on a moment’s notice, if it served their purpose! But strikes these days do cause a great deal of inconvenience for the “rank and file”, and crooked CEO’s regularly wrap themselves in that, like criminal politicians “wrap themselves in the flag”! They try to turn the public against each other, using that inconvenience as the “justification” for preventing a group of people from seeking their legitimate due! The primary purpose of striking, though, is supposed to be the inconveniencing only of the CEO’s robbing the union, by denying them income from enslaving the workers! But the CEO’s, essentially, have so set up affairs that any strike against them is automatically transferred down, to encumber the rest of the “rank and file”. By deviously introducing corporate influence into every level of society, they have arranged that any action taken against them is immediately transferred to the “rank and file” around them!

In military terms, it’s called using “human shields”!

Big business has essentially arranged to make itself so crucial to so many that any strike action taken, to ensure workers decent working conditions and wages, instead becomes a bludgeon on the rest of the “rank and file”, evidently to turn opinion against the strikers!

In the end, so much of the antipathy the evident thieves in government, big business and the media sought to arouse, in the “rank and file”, against the strikers, derived from the presentation of the strikers as having committed the “sin” of caring about their welfare! But everyone has the right to be concerned for their well-being! It is one of the crimes against humanity, that the Constitution claimed to oppose, to deny someone the right to care about their personal well-being. To be sure, ruthless obsession solely with one’s own well-being is greed, but normal concern for one’s welfare is considered an inalienable right! The strike by the transit workers was an act of desperation, in the face of an evidently intolerant and criminal MTA and corrupt and complicit government! It wasn’t a first choice, demonstrating a disinterest in the convenience of the straphangers, but, rather, something they were driven to by the evidently malignant machinations of a colluding MTA and New York government! Knowing the strikers’ threat, it was the MTA that demonstrated contempt for the convenience of commuters, by refusing to negotiate, and, therefore, precipitating the strike!

In fact, it is supposed to be part of the ideal society, that United States government used to claim to be pursuing, that everyone recognize everyone else’s right to pursue their welfare. Opposing the ruthless utter and complete self-centeredness that appears to motivate the MTA and Mayor Bloomberg was considered a crucial part of what it meant to be American. No more, however. Another evident pustulent remnant of the Reagan years is the rabid attempt not only to frame illegal machinations by big business as noble, but, also, making those filthy initiatives a commonplace among the “rank and file”. Making the commuters feel as selfish and self-servingly disdainful of the transit workers’ rights, and as absolutely hateful of their attempts to get better working conditions, as the bosses apparently all are! Putting the “rank and file” as much at each other’s throats as the CEO’s and politicos evidently are! But that is not what ideal society is like! The Constitution pointed toward the wishes of an ideal society, making it right for people to seek their welfare, and making it incumbent upon everyone else to be concerned for the welfare of everyone in society, not just themselves! Those who respect the Constitution recoginzed that the strikers were doing that not to make things hard for the ridership, but to take care of their families, and in response to evidently criminal machinations by a malevolent MTA that itself had no regard for preventing distressing the straphangers! In embracing Reagan’s apparently depraved and diseased proclivities, the society, in general, has strayed from what promised to make it noble! And, no matter what quislings and apologists for Wall Street say, this is what led God to abandon the nation, and open the door for what happened September 11, 2001! To be sure, the evidence continues to mount that it was engineered by George Bush, to try to seize emergency dictatorial powers, but a nation that was living by decent principles, overall, would not be in the position where a psychopath could arrange that kind of operation!

All those who failed to contest the MTA’s portrayal of the strikers should ask themselves how it feels to be a quisling supporter of malignant machinations to deny the “rank and file” their rights!

In light of his evidently criminally slanted take on the matter, a dare, then, for Mayor Bloomberg. He seems to see the strikers as so unjustified and illegitimate, I order him to answer this question. He is to imagine that he is an employee of a company, apparently helmed by criminals with corrupt political pull, who do not intend to offer anything like a legitimate wage to him. All negotiations lead nowhere, and he knows that, going by the “legally permitted” route will only result in the city putting its full authoritarian weight on the side of the CEO’s, and not the union. Given that situation, where it is guaranteed that the company will not provide a decent wage, where the city is apparently ruthlessly devoted to backing up the CEO’s, and no one else, and where going out on strike is made “illegal”, I demand that Bloomberg inform me what he would do that would ensure his getting a decent wage from the company!

When it becomes apparent that those in positions of influence cannot be counted on to protect the welfare of the public, it is up to the people to see to their own welfare, themselves!

First and foremost, if nothing else, the public must reconcile themselves to the apparent fact that government sees its only purpose as being to make sure the rich keep getting richer! Their only loyalty is evidently to the rich! They apparently see the “rank and file” as just “beasts of burden”! The people must never expect anyone in government to do anything for their benefit! Every “government contract” must be seen as just another handing out of taxpayer money to political cronies, for substandard work with shoddy materials! Any claim a politician makes of working for the welfare of the public should be seen as just a lie to cover plundering the public coffers, to enrich their corporate friends! No politico should be viewed as anything other than a crook!

The public should also see the media as just a collection of lying whores, saying only what favors the rich and unprincipled!

Because of this, the public must boycott all elections! Since no one who was a candidate, apparently, ever did anything to promote the rights of the “rank and file”, little is lost by not voting for any of the garbage the parties provide as “choices”! When, finally, overall decisions are made by those represented by no more than 1% of the electorate, the sheer disgrace might lead to something substantive for the people’s rights taking place!

The people, themselves, among other things, must flood news editors’ and politicians’ desks with letters and emails, informing them that they know the truth!

They must also starve the demon of its sustenance, by cutting back on all expenditures in products or services offered by big business - in fact, the “rank and file”, for the most part, should do no business with any company with more than 10 employees! - and they must forego all elective payments to government, such as donations and legalized gambling!

They must also rob the monster of its teeth - the men with guns used as the last resort to enforce apparently immoral and unjust laws, - by counseling their children never to enter the police, the military or the National Guard!

Unions must also explore alternate methods of imposing their will on big business, other than strikes!

Most importantly, the people must involve themselves, deeply and determinedly, in what goes on around them, so they will always be in a position to denounce the vile and corrupt, whenever it occurs!

Julian Penrod

[PadawanOsswe]

****g Unions