Results tagged “transport”

Moving can take a real toll on the environment. Think of all the cardboard boxes, the truck(s), the frequent opening of doors to climate-controlled rooms and the products and solutions you use to clean the whole place down for the next tenants because you're an awesome person bucking for canonization. Step one on reducing your impact -- the easiest step -- is recycling. And it's not too hard to find earth-friendly cleaning products. But...

What a way to (almost) end 2006 - with an arbitrator making a decision about the MTA's transit workers' contract! And the decision is pretty anti-climactic - it's basically the deal that ended the strike last year, though it was later rejected by the Transit Workers Union, then passed but then denied by the MTA. Anyway, arbitrator George Nicolau said the deal was "the most just and reasonable" solution. From the AP:

Both the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and its foil, Transport Workers Union Local 100, hailed the decision as a triumph -- then needled each other.

Continue reading "Arbitrator Finally Rules on Transit Contract"

Huh. Transit Workers Union president Roger Toussaint tells the Daily News that he had a "secret deal with the MTA really ended the walkout." Toussaint faces re-election to be TWU president this month and has been criticized by opponents for ending the strike before getting a contract. So we think it's pretty convenient for Toussaint to tell all now. From the Daily News:

Toussaint said he kept the original pact secret because of the highly charged atmosphere: Gov. Pataki had insisted on the second day of the strike that the MTA wouldn't negotiate while workers were still walking picket lines.

Continue reading "Roger's Secret"

THEATER: The Transport Group’s season begins with Tad Mosel's 1961 play All the Way Home. The Pulitzer Prize-winning play is based on James Agee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, A Death in the Family, so that kind of prize power should put this production on track for a couple OBIEs, at least. Set in Knoxville in the summer of 1915, All The Way Home explores generations of family relationships in a time of crisis, with an original score by Ellen Weiss for voice and harmonica. - John Del Signore

The Post gets to see the MTA's new "Rail Control Center", which is where all subway trains can be monitored starting in 2010. It's somewhere, on the West Side and is likened to NASA's mission control.

Transit officials are highly secretive about the center - which would be the largest and most advanced rail-control system in the world - because it could be a terror target, sources said.

Continue reading "MTA Will Get More Control in 2010"

Pamela Tully, Forest Hills, Queens

Wow. The Transport Workers Union's headquarters on West End Avenue was sold for $60 million. Back in April, it was reported that the headquarters were worth $39 million, but that there was a $60 million offer. And clearly, the TWU decided the cash out. One source tells the Post, "This amounts to yet another miscalculation on the part of the MTA and Governor Pataki. They thought they could bust this union, but we are now stronger than ever and we're ready to fight." It'll be interesting to see how the money is used, after paying the fine and getting new headquarters.

Animal New York takes issue with Matthew Long, the firefighter hospitalized for almost six months after being injured during the transit strike and finally went home with much fanfare last week. Long was injured while biking to his stationhouse and a private bus (chartered by Bear Stearns for its employees) hit him; he is now suing the Transport Workers Union as well as Bear Stearns, and the van company. Animal New York says Long should be "discussing just how dangerous the streets of NYC are when it comes to cycling" instead, noting that Long admitted he doesn't usually bike in the city. Animal New York has photographs of the road where Long was hit - a stretch of East 52nd Street riddled with potholes. Hmm, maybe Long will have a case against the City of New York and the Department of Transportation as well?

- Governor Pataki's office said, "After almost eight years as Shelly Silver's silent partner in Albany, Rip Van Spitzer today awoke from his slumber to talk about ethics in government. New York's top law enforcement official needs to look no further than across the convention hall and see his pal Speaker Silver for the most obvious source of concern. From Michael Boxley to Ryan Karben, Speaker Silver routinely conducts the affairs of the Assembly majority with the secrecy of the old Kremlin and the ethics of Tammany Hall. New Yorkers deserve better. Even old Rip Van Spitzer knows that."Rip Van Spitzer! Plagues! Awesome! What with Spitzer calling Ground Zero's slow development an "Enron-style debacle" and an "abject failure," this might be an exciting war of the words! And Spitzer's running mate is State Senator David Paterson of Harlem - son of Basil Paterson, former NY Secretary of State and the lawyer for the Transport Workers Union on the arbitration panel.

Matthew Long, the man who was seriously injured during last December's transit strike (a private bus hit him as he biked to the stationhouse), has finally been released from the hospital. He's had 15 operations in the past five months and was only given a 1% chance of surviving: A doctor said, "He should be dead. Even the nurses in the ER thought what we were doing was an act in futility.". Long now spends most of his time using a wheelchair, though he's been walking with crutches; Long used to compete in triathlons. Long is suing the Transport Workers Union as well as Bear Stearns (which chartered the private bus) and the private bus company.

"The thing here that people should be outraged about are the people that marched with Roger Toussaint across the bridge. What kind of message does that send to our kids?" That's a veiled refernce to teachers union head Randi Weingarten if we ever heard one! At any rate, Toussaint said he was treated decently in jail - no lawsuits over that.

Four days, four nights - that's all the time that Transport Workers Union president Roger Toussiant spent at the Tombs as he was released just now. And why? Good behavior, plus this interesting loophole, via the Daily News:

Inmates automatically get one-third off their sentences for good behavior, bringing his term to seven days.

Continue reading "TWU Prez Outta Jail Early!"

MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow called the Transport Workers Union December 2005 transit strike a "criminal act committed against riders" and refused to revote on the post-strike offer that the TWU rejected then accepted. He also told the MTA board that he begged Transport Workers Union head Roger Toussaint to continue negotiatingduring pre-strike negotiations last December.

"I pleaded with Roger Toussaint not to leave. I begged him. I can't remember the last time I begged somebody to do something, but I did that night. I said, 'Roger, don't leave,' and Roger got up and walked out and sent his union out on an illegal strike."

In a city where there’s as much theater as there is here, we’re never too surprised when shows open that have a lot in common, but it’s always fun to note and wonder what was happening in the creative Zeitgeist to generate technically unrelated but similar works. This week, for instance, Rachel Shukert’s Bloody Mary opens, bringing the life of the notoriously unbalanced daughter of Henry VIII to the stage in suitably off-the-wall fashion (Mary has a guardian who just might be Jimi Hendrix; a New York lawyer somehow gets involved in the power struggles). Meanwhile, at the Pearl you can see Schiller’s dark, brooding Mary Stuart, which looks at the events surrounding the execution of Bloody Mary’s cousin, which was ordered by Elizabeth I. The Pearl always presents loving, carefully considered revivals, so the coincident dates with Shukert’s production should provide a good opportunity for comparing and contrasting visions of ye olde England.

The Transport Workers Union president Roger Toussaint will kick off his ten-day jail sentence - for last December's three-day transit strike - by having a rally outside King's County Supreme Court at 4PM. Then Toussaint and his supporters - including the Reverend Al Sharpton and John J. Sweeny of the AFL-CIO - will march across the Brooklyn Bridge and head over to the Tombs, where he needs to report at 6PM. But supporters will also hold sit-ins outside the jail. Toussaint tells the NY Times that his jail sentence is stupid, "It's one thing if you threaten a jail sentence while a strike is on. t's another thing to send someone to jail three months afterward." And he tells the Daily News that he's not worried about jail, but he's worried about his family worrying about, like his 10 year old son. The Post's reporter got threatened when he observed Toussaint's "last day of freedom" while eating in Boerum Hill ("curried chicken, accompanied by rice and beans and spicy cabbage at the West Indian home-style favorite Stir It Up on Atlantic Avenue").

Interesting fact about the fines imposed on the Transport Workers Union over last December's strike. The TWU can resume collecting membership dues (about $1.5 million per month) if TWU president says the union will never strike again. The thing is that TWU president Roger Toussaint has been pretty adamant about the right to strike, and it'd be unlikely he'd go for it... even though it seems like the union might want some sort of leadership shake-up. And in the "Toussaint's going to jail!" coverage that is so excitable in the tabs, the Daily News looks at what Toussaint can expect in jail. He'll be at "The Tombs" on White Street (aka the Bernard Kerik Complex!) downtown, in a 6" by 8" cell, and breakfast include "cereal, bread and fruit."

Brooklyn Supreme Court's Justice Theodore Jones nailed the transit union with a huge $2.5 million fine yesterday, plus ordered the union to stop collecting dues, and the Transport Workers Union vowed to appeal the decision. The loss for the TWU could be over $7 million all told, since the TWU takes in $1.6 million in dues each month and the union cannot appeal the dues payment stoppage for three months. The TWU will now have to collect fines on the individual basis, and who knows how successul that will be. Naturally, the MTA appreciated the ruling, saying, "In light of the decision by the TWU leadership last December to willfully violate the Taylor Law and disrupt the lives of millions of New Yorkers, we respect the ruling of the court." The Reverend Jesse Jackson, along with the Reverend Al Sharpton, was present for the fines hearing, and complained that the ruling means unions cannot fight back. You can read TWU president Roger Toussaint's court statement, proclaiming that transit workers were engaging in civil disobedience. With the appeal, Gothamist wonders if the fine will be reduced further, as Justice Jones already knocked off half a million - it seems that since the Taylor Law is in place, the TWU has to be punished in some way, like it or not.

The hearings to determine the Transport Workers' Union fine from the three day transit strike is just full of (weird) new tidbits. The TWU has been arguing that paying a $3 million fine, plus not receiving its union members' dues automatically each paycheck, would ruin them. The MTA says that the TWU's 80 West End Avenue headquarters are worth $39 million - and TWU treasurer Ed Watt said that there was an offer on it for $60 million! The MTA's lawyer also suggested that union members pay their dues by PayPal, but TWU President and soon-to-be jailbird (lest he appeals) Roger Toussaint says that it's unlikely all of the union's members would voluntarily pay dues. Yeah, no one really likes dues. The judge is expect to rule on Monday.

Yesterday afternoon, Transport Workers Union president Roger Toussaint was sentenced to 10 days in jail, plus a $1000 fine, for his role in last year's transit strike. Though it's unclear whether or not he'll be appealing the decision (he has 29 more days to figure that out!), there are aleady murmurings of him becoming a labor martyr symbol, though Toussaint denies it. Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Theodore Jones said, "I said in December this episode represents a sad day in New York City labor relations and I still believe that. I'm confounded by the tortured tale of these negotiations. It is unfortunate that it had to come down to an illegal strike"; Jones could have given Toussaint community service instead. The two other top TWU officials were hit with $500 fines each, and the MTA and Governor Pataki seemed satisified with the outcome. The NY Times mentioned how some labor unions believe the Taylor Law, which prohibits public employees to go on strike (and this is the law that Toussaint violated), gives too much power to management; we wonder if the next governor will do anything to address this.

Damn - Transport Workers Union president Roger Toussaint has been sentenced to 10 days in jail for last December's transit strike. He was also fined $1,000. The TWU's Ed Watt and Darlyne Lawson were each fined $500 only. Other fines are still being determined (like whether or not the union itself will be reprimanded). We're sure some anti-TWU folks - and some of the TWU opposition faction - are happy with the ruling (remember all those "Jail Toussaint" opinion pieces?).

The Transport Workers Union is having its members re-vote on the striked-for contract that was ultimately rejected in January, but there are still some TWU members who want workers to reject the contract again. According to the NY Times, the dissidents claim that a revote "undermines the union democracy" but the TWU's stance has been that some workers misunderstood (or were deliberately mislead) about what the contract included. Overall, the TWU has been trying to rally support for a revote that supports the contract because they'd most likely get a bad deal in binding arbitration, and an explanation about the 1.5% sticking point about members now contributing to their medical gets a huge typeface on the TWU website. Of course, the MTA says that the old, rejected contract isn't even on the table anymore, but Gothamist imagines that if the union were to vote yes, the MTA would have to come around in some way, or else be spun as unreasonable by all sides.

The more Gothamist hears about the MTA and Transport Workers Union, the more we're confused. So, the TWU is trying to get its membership to approve the contract that was rejected by 7 votes in January, even though the MTA claims that the contract is no longer valid and just wants the whole thing to go to binding arbitration... yet the TWU is still going through with a revote, probably in April. Why can't these two sides just suck it up and work it out? Even though a strike is supposed to be unlikely, it just makes us crazy that it has to drag on like this. Why did the MTA have to be so stupid to suddenly disavow the contract? And why did the TWU not express what the contract said (the union is claiming some of its members were misinformed last go around)? Once a contract is finally agreed upon, Gothamist would like to suggest that both parties go into couples counseling or group therapy, because to go through this every three years is stupid.

- The St. Guillen indictment didn't happen today as expected, but maybe Monday; there is another protest outside the Falls tonight at 8PM