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......

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......

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......

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. The subway has always depended on its three......

Transport Workers Union members were on the Upper East Side this morning, protesting MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow and his and the MTA board's "inaction" on the contract. Now, Gothamist understands why they went, but we doubt Kalikow will listen. The Daily News printed Kalikow's answers to reader questions, and we have to doubt whether or not Kalikow actually rides the system from time to time. Take this question:Q: The temperature in the subways is absolutely......

Politics is definitely a weird thing when Peter Kalikow gets another term as MTA Chairman. Stupid State Senate, for reconfirming him! Kalikow wants to see some big projects finished (the 7 line extension, LIRR connection to Grand Central, South Ferry station's rebulid, the Fulton Street Transit Center, and the Second Avenue subway), and told the State Senate:I work for the people of the State of New York. That's who I believe are my bosses -......

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......

There's nothing like union workers picketing outside a fancy Upper East Side abode! This morning, Transport Workers Union members are outside MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow's home, claiming that he's "perpetuating the labor dispute rather than allowing the MTA to vote on the contract " and "putting European vacations and a custom made Ferrari over their need for a new 37 month contract that would include a raise of more than ten percent," as WABC......

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......

To few people's surprise, NY State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer was named the Democratic nominee this fall's Governor's race. And when you get the nomination, it's not just time to be kissy-poo - it's a time to get dirty. Some hilarious comments after Spitzer's nominations, via the NY Times:- Assemby Speaker Sheldon Silver called Governor Pataki's terms a "12-year-long plague." - Governor Pataki's office said, "After almost eight years as Shelly Silver's silent partner in......

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......

Transport Workers Union president Roger Toussaint enjoyed freedom yesterday, and showed it by defiant speech slamming the MTA's desire to restart contract talks and wanting to fight the Taylor Law. Toussain't point about the Taylor Law is picked up by the NY TImes, "The law doesn't have any consequences for employers who negotiate in bad faith or fail to resolve contracts in a timely manner." Oh, snap, Peter Kalikow! But Mayor Bloomberg is upset with......

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. That would mean a Sunday exit for Toussaint, 49, who entered the Tombs in Manhattan Monday night. But state law also says......

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......

Transport Workers Union Roger Toussaint may be in jail, but that doesn't mean the union isn't trying to strongarm the MTA into re-offering the contract that the union accepted. Union officials are >floating the idea of "targeted slowdowns" if the contract isn't accepted, which is scary to Gothamist, as that means our weekend subway and bus trips could be even more unpredictable! But the MTA says the board won't approve the contract. At any rate,......

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......

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......

Even if you're going to jail for ten days (or less), you need to cut loose. Which is what Transport Workers Union leader Roger Toussaint did last night - he held a party, complete with DJ and tons of food at the Local 1199 headquarters. The Post's reporter sneaked in to observe the fun, hear Toussaint say, "Now I'm going on vacation," and see him dance, before being kicked out. The party started at 6:30PM......

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......

Two times is a charm for the Transport Workers Union! After narrowly rejecting the first contract by seven votes in January, and now after their union has been hit with millions in fines just yesterday, 71% of the Transport Workers Union have approved the original contract. But since the MTA claims that they are not offering this now union-approved contract any longer, we expect there to be either binding arbitration or some serious tete-a-tetes......

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......

Sometimes when screeners check your luggage at the airport, you get your bags back with stuff missing. But one woman actually got something - and the Transport Security Administration is disturbed because it was a TSA screener's shirt inside. WABC 7 reports that Staten Island resident Debra Sander found the shirt in her bag after flying Jet Blue to Tampa, via Newark airport, over the Easter weekend, and the shirt looks "official" with badges and......

Yikes - Judge Theodore Jones just ruled that the Transport Workers Union must pay a $2.5 million fine for the three-day transit strike! And what's more, the TWU cannot deduct union dues from MTA employee paychecks (which is what they automatically do now) for three months. The TWU had complained that a big fine, plus not being able to draw monthly dues, would cripple them (who knew they have over a million in unpaid bills!),......

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......

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......

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......

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......

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......

- Whoa, WTC developer Larry Silverstein delivers a new proposal to the Port Authority - will they be working on this through the weekend? - The woman, "Sister Ping," behind one of the biggest immigrant smuggling operations gets 35 years in prison, and makes the judge angry during sentencing - Mediators think the MTA and Transport Workers Union contract dispute should go into binding arbitration - Awesome Queens real estate marketing campaign that takes......