Transit Strike Hits Day Three, with MTA and TWU Talking

I was just at the Dunkin Donuts in the concourse above the 47-50th street station, and I heard 4 trains rumble below. Could this be trains returning from the yards in anticipation of the end of the strike?

damiano, they (read: MTA non-union staff) are still running trains over the tracks to keep them polished, I believe.

Juan Gonzalez's Daily News column:

MTA's violating Taylor Law as well

Gov. Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg have vowed drastic penalties for the striking members of the Transport Workers Union for violating the Taylor Law.
Yet the mayor and the governor have been completely silent about violations of the same Taylor Law by their own appointed officials at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

The most well-known portion of the law, Section 210, states that "no public employee or employee organization shall engage in a strike."

That is not, however, the only provision of the law. Other sections also provide protections to public employees.

City union leaders and state lawmakers keep trying to point that out. They say the MTA itself trampled a key provision of the Taylor Law by demanding that TWU President Roger Toussaint accept an inferior pension plan for future members of his union as a condition of a new labor contract.

Section 201 of the law clearly states that "no such retirement benefits shall be negotiated pursuant to this article, and any benefits so negotiated shall be void."

Only the Legislature has the legal authority to approve changes in public employee pension systems.

Not the MTA. Not the mayor. And not the governor all by himself.

That's the way it always has been.

MTA officials have claimed for several days that reforming the union's pension plan became themain unresolved issue to a settlement.

"That's what's known as an impermissible subject of bargaining," said Assemblyman Richard Brodsky (D-Westchester), who is chairman of the Assembly committee that oversees the MTA.

Sure, unions and public agencies sometimes agree, as part of an overall labor settlement, to jointly petition the Legislature for pension changes, but management can't simply force a union to accept a worse retirement plan.

"If the governor is going to be a tough guy about the Taylor Law with the union, he should be tough as well on the law when it comes to the MTA," Brodsky said yesterday.

This crippling strike could be over in hours if Pataki ordered the MTA to adhere to the same Taylor Law he wants the union to respect.

Toussaint said as much to a group of 40 city labor leaders in a telephone conference around noon yesterday. He repeated it a few hours later in a meeting with several dozen black political and religious leaders and in a press conference later in the afternoon.

His plea is now being taken up by many leaders eager to bring labor peace back to the city.

Municipal union leaders, headed by teachers union chief Randi Weingarten, urged the mayor and the governor to set aside the pension issue for now. Meanwhile, several state legislators made the same pitch in Albany.

If there are reforms needed in public employee pensions, they say, they should be negotiated with all the unions involved in the city's retirement system, not by singling out the transit workers union as a test case.

But even before Toussaint spoke, Pataki delivered yet another blistering criticism of the strikers. Worse, he tried to escalate the conflict by urging no further contract talks until theunion returns to work.

In two previous illegal transit strikes during the past 50 years, union leaders and public officials always kept negotiating until they reached a settlement.

Thankfully, MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow moved forward yesterday with serious mediation efforts that continued late last night. Kalikow appears to be the only top MTA official eager to reach a deal.

His boss Pataki, on the other hand, is eager to prove to the nation what a tough-guy President he would make. In Toussaint and his 33,000 union members, he sees his ticket to fame.

So what if the public has to endure a few more days of a transit strike that never should have happened in the first place? Who will listen to a bunch of union members engaged in an illegal strike, the governor and the mayor seem to think.

We'll soon find out if they're right.

Yesterday, Roger Toussaint said the following: "Had Rosa Parks
answered the call of the law instead of the higher call of justice,
many of us who are driving buses today would still be in the back of the bus." I think most of us, whatever our culture, are dreaming of the day when we can ride in the back of a bus again.

And hopefully, rather than behind the wheel, Roger Toussaint will be under one of them.

(Section 201 of the law clearly states that "no such retirement benefits shall be negotiated pursuant to this article, and any benefits so negotiated shall be void.")

This strike has occured not only because the MTA wanted an age 62 pension, but because the union has demanded an age 50 pension. As I explained, this pension was unanimously passed by the state legislature and vetoed by Pataki.

The workers are strking to try to force the MTA to let them retire at 50, which would effectively devastate the system (the same way the last 20/50 did in the 1970s) by diverting additional massive revenues to those no longer working. They are violating the Taylor law not once, but twice, and have made pension demands in every contract. Moreover, since the New Directions movement took over the union by promising to get 20/50 by striking, I'm not sure they can stop the strike without it.

FUCK THE TERRORIST WORKERS UNION!!!!!!

If type people in the unions had any sort of ambition, they would have a chance at being millionaires/billionaires too. But their mantra is work less, get more. Unions are irrelevant in this century. We no longer have kids working in factories, or people forced to work 15 hr days. The unions can be disbanded. TWU can suck it.

I'm just thankful I have both legs to walk to work on. Quit your bitching.