Someone has just thrown a big, fat monkey wrench into NYC and that someone is the transit union…and a judge is not pleased:
A Brooklyn judge slapped the transit workers union with a $1 million a day fine and exposed an internal rift, as a mediation session aimed at stopping the walkout was slated for this afternoon.
But any prospects for a quick resolution were tempered by the rhetoric of striking workers, with Union President Roger Toussaint in televised reports saying the strike could stretch on for days.
“I think we will have the growing support of working men and women of New York,” said the union leader. “I regret that the MTA, the mayor and the governor did not do their public duty to avoid this crisis.”
But will it? Or is this another case of a union overplaying its hand? For instance, Newsweek‘s report doesn’t sound as if most New Yorkers are going to be delighted by the impact on their city:
Talks continue in an effort to avoid a repeat of the last New York City transit strike, 25 years ago, which lasted 11 economically devastating days. In the meantime, the city’s businesses braced themselves for a huge loss in retail sales and productivity during what is normally the busiest shopping week of the year. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who bundled up and headed over the Brooklyn Bridge on foot along with thousands of other New Yorkers, estimated that this strike would cost the city $440 to $660 million per day in lost economic activity.
“This is a death by a thousand cuts in terms of inconvenience. It adds up to a very debilitating situation for the city,� says Kathryn Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City—an organization that represents chief executive officers of 200 of New York’s largest companies.
Blogger Jeff Jarvis is there and he has some (peppery) thoughts:
New York transit is on strike. I won’t be able to go to work today, like millions of others, who also won’t be able to shop or go to restaurants. The city will lose hundreds of millions and untold millions will lose millions in turn. And what for?
Every industry in the U.S. economy has had to go through radical restructuring to find new efficiencies. But not government and civil service. And that is what this strike is about.
The transit union was demanding that its workers be able to retire at 55 on pension, and the city, which wanted to raise the age for new workers to 62, buckled last night. I don’t have a pension, do you? I have a 401K, one for every employer in the last 20 years; I’m sure most of you are in similar boats. Retire at 55? Ha!
At the same time, the union has been insistent about maintaining artificial, wasteful, expensive manning levels…
…The union broke the law this morning, costing New Yorkers their own pay and businesses their business and the city its tax resources so that its members could keep pensions that most Americans don’t have and retire sooner than most Americans could dream of doing and keep inefficient jobs for which there is no need.
He has more to say on that, so be sure to read the whole thing.
One of the problems seems to be that unions have not yet been able to adapt themselves nimbly to the 21st century. Their political ineffectiveness and overall clumsiness began to be seen starting in the 60s and it has been largely downhill from there. A long strike in New York, with a debilitating impact due to mass inconvenience and financial loss, would be one more out-of-sync step to add to union history, prestige and, ultimately, long-term clout.