New York, New York!

Can we get this Judge and give him a job here. Man, wouldn't you just love to see the likes of ILDA/NBRU get this kind of treatment next time they are sufferning from "stress". This is the way to deal with this carry on. Nice one.


Court Fines NYC Transit Strikers $1M a Day
AP - 23 minutes ago

NEW YORK - Commuters trudged through the freezing cold, rode bicycles and shared cabs Tuesday as New York's bus and subway workers went on strike for the first time in more than 25 years and stranded millions of riders at the height of the Christmas rush. A judge slapped the union with a $1 million-a-day fine. State Justice Theodore Jones leveled the sanction against the Transport Workers Union for violating a state law that bars public employees from going on strike. The city and state had asked Jones to hit the union with a "very potent fine."

[PaulM]

Originally Posted by Thomas Sheridan

that bars public employees from going on strike.

This is what we need more of.

[microlicious]

Under the emergency measures, cars carrying fewer than four passengers were being turned away at bridges and tunnels into Manhattan.

They're being very practical.They're having police also issuing summonses besides turning people away. Bloomberg is emphasizing the idea of public service when referring to the strike and public transit. One of the complaints is that the workers feel unappreciated and disrespected by the public.....*looks away, whistles*... illegally striking in the freezing winter right before Christmas bringing sympathy to the TWU, hmmmmmmmm.

[Thomas J Stamp]

there was a strike there about 25 years ago whcih led to the law being passed that they cannot go out on an all out strike. What is the nature of the dispute anyway? If there hasnt been any strikes or such for 25 years things must have been ok twixt the union and the city.

[microlicious]

They want more money and they are also ticked about the Metropolitan Transit Authority wanting new workers to pay more for their healthcare benefits. The bit about how they feel disrespected by the public is just ridiculous, it's always really about money, none of the strikers truly gives a flying rats bum about the public. Breaking the Taylor Law to negotiate their contracts is not doing them any favors. Bloomberg is saying no negotiations till after they return to work.

The bit about how they feel disrespected by the public is just ridiculous, it's always really about money, none of the strikers truly gives a flying rats bum about the public.

Here they use "stress" instead of feeling disrespected. I am sure the NBRU are taking note though.

[PaulM]

A strike over an argument with a driver? Probably striking as someone hurt Anto's feelings calling him lazy.

[Beekeeper]

By Ron Scherer, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor Wed Dec 21, 3:00 AM ET

NEW YORK - It's a collision America is seeing more often: Management tries to have workers move back their retirement age and pay more for healthcare, while workers try to keep their benefits and make up for lost ground on wages.

This labor-management clash forced 7 million commuters in New York Tuesday to resort to bicycling, rollerblading, or just plain hoofing it to work after a 3 a.m. strike shut down the transit system for the first time in 25 years. Bundling up in 20-degree weather, some commuters piled in, four to a taxi, or got caught in traffic gridlock at checkpoints designed to ensure at least four people were in each vehicle.

Some of the issues in the Big Apple - especially the effort to diminish pension and healthcare benefits for future employees - will be watched carefully by other unions. Management teams around the nation will also be watching to see what succeeds and what doesn't.

"The surprise is that it's only now that not just unions but [their members] are starting to cry, 'Where's mine?' " says Ken Goldstein, a labor economist at the
Conference Board, a business research organization in New York. "We're paying the price for keeping the lid on wages and costs."

The transit workers in New York started by asking for a 24 percent pay raise over three years. Since the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) has a $1 billion surplus, the union felt it was entitled to a significant increase.

However, the MTA replied that the surplus did not come from operations but from selling assets. Management's last offer was reportedly for 10-1/2 percent over three years. This would be above the 3 percent settlement for each of the next four years that the Philadelphia transit workers received after a one-week strike at the end of October.

"Three percent per year for three years is considered a good settlement," says Gary Chaison, a professor of industrial relations at Clark University in Worcester, Mass.

Aside from wages, the major issue facing municipal unions is healthcare and retirement costs. In Philadelphia, SEPTA, the Southern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, started negotiations by asking workers to pay 20 percent of their base pay toward the cost of medical premiums.

The workers eventually agreed to pay 1 percent of their base pay. "It will defray 4 percent of SEPTA's medical costs," says Richard Maloney, a spokesman for SEPTA.

In July in San Francisco, a transit strike on the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) was averted after the workers agreed to increase their healthcare contributions from $25 to $75 a month starting in January. Their contributions will continue to increase 3 percent annually.

"The trend is to pay more. There is not a lot of sympathy from the public," says Bill Adams of Adams, Nash, Haskell & Sheridan, a Cincinnati-based consultant that acknowledges an antiunion bias.

The unions, of course, view the battle quite differently. "It's a plan to shift the cost to the employees," says Steven Kreisberg, collective bargaining director at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) in Washington. "It's an all-out assault on benefits and a shifting of risks to workers who can't afford those risks."

The unions are also opposed to the concept of two-tier labor agreements, which give lower benefits or wages to newly hired workers. In the New York transit talks, the MTA is asking that new workers pay a larger amount toward their retirement.

"Two-tier agreements hurt morale and inhibit recruitment for the union," says Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. "It's bad for union solidarity."

The union is hoping that the city and its officials will back down since the strike is coming during the crucial holiday shopping season. Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the economic impact of the strike is $400 million per day. "That could probably fund the settlement: They can't be much further away than that for 33,000 workers," says Mr. Kreisberg.

Unions are worried that any concessions by the transit workers' union will affect other negotiations next year. For example, AFSCME will be negotiating with Mayor Bloomberg in late March on behalf of 120,000 workers.

For its part, New York City officials have the leverage of the Taylor Law, which makes public employee strikes illegal and fines workers two days' pay for each day not worked. In addition, the city has a court order that enacts massive fines on both the union and the workers.

"If the city enacts these fines, the workers will go bankrupt, lose their homes," says Ms. Bronfenbrenner.

In the past, says Mr. Chaison, the fines have become part of the negotiations. The city has forgiven the penalties on the workers but not the union. But this year, there is an added element: Gov. George Pataki (R) is already positioning himself for a presidential campaign in 2008. "It may give the governor a sense he has to prove something - establish his reputation to not back down," says Chaison. "I am afraid the parties are really digging in. This has become a first-class dispute, a bitter dispute."