My experience has been similar to Tamashawallah's. I generally hang with a pretty liberal crowd, and just about everyone I've spoken to about it seems to blame the union. The press has been hostile, too -- today's tabloids were viciously anti-union, and even the Times editorialized against the strike (although they did give Pataki a well-deserved slap for skipping town). I think mostly, people are just pissed that it takes them two hours to get to work in the freezing cold, and they want to blame somebody. But it also seems like Toussaint has badly miscalculated, especially in terms of lining up the parent union's support. My guess is that at this point, he'll have to settle for a face-saving climbdown at best, and a completely humiliating defeat at worst.

Well, I too, live in NYC, and have (informally) polled all MY friends and relatives - not a notably "conservative" bunch -about the transit strike, and the lack of sympathy for the union's intransigence in this instance is really striking. Lofty rhetoric about "respect" for labor is all well and good - but when the issues come down to dollars-and-cents (which,  The Nobility Of The Worker cliches aside, is what the whole Transit issue is about) the union has soured its public image -and that in a very labor-friendly city - by holding out for arguably unjustified wage increases (8% annually for three years?) based on supposedly huge surpluses the MTA is assumed to be reporting; figures which anyone with any knowledge of the TA will know will probably evaporate in a year's time. And despite having to get up early, TA workers are already pulling down pretty full salaries/benefits (even by New York standards). Most Labor/Management issues are usually complex, and don't always fall into simplistic stereotypes: this one is no exception.

When Democrats defend unions in this kind of situation, we reinforce the unfortunate (and generally inaccurate) perception that we are the tools of special interests, willing to support them even when their actions harm the public.

And if Democrats don't defend the unions, then they are "spineless."  It seems they are in a no-win situation, as are the unions.

Speaking of "defending,"  your 2 rating of  DefJef's post, above, was indefensible.  

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AUTHOR: numbertwopencil
DATE: 12/21/2005 08:17:44 PM

The average transit worker currently makes $55,000 a year. While this is hardly the easy life, it is certainly not poverty... Moreover, transit workers are given a full pension at age 55, a luxury that decreasingly few other workers can claim... when one considers that transit workers typically get a starting salary that is higher than starting salaries of both police and teachers (in the case of police, far higher) in New York, and in general, get paid quite well, given that their jobs do not usually require a college education or significant training, it becomes very hard to think of them as some kind of oppressed underclass.

I think there are a couple problems with this line of reasoning.  The first is that virtually everyone thinks that teachers are underpaid and cops receive unconscionable starting salaries.  Saying that TWU workers should accept benefit cuts because others are being underpaid doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

(It's like a strange variation of the "starving children of Africa" -- "How can you accept $30,000 a year when children are being paid pennies a day in Malaysia?")

The second is that I haven't seen a lot of class-warfare style language on exploitation in public statements.  There's a lot of talk of "respect", and, admittedly, I don't know a lot about that particular complaint (more here) but I would say that Bloomberg has been incredibly disrespectful to TWU workers -- calling them "thugs" is just plain wrong.

You're absolutely right, though, that this strike affects everyone -- the poor more than others -- and the sooner it's done, the better for everyone.  And it'll end equitably as soon as the MTA stops demanding cuts in total compensation for new workers.

Public support for the union seems to be eroding rather rapidly, as one would expect.  Bloomberg does have a tin-ear, I think, but he's using a very simple, adversarial, approach that refuses any sort of nuance and it's actually working for him.  It's not working on the big issue, of course, which would be to get both sides bargaining again, hopefully on terms that would end the strike quickly.  If he wanted that, he'd be pressuring the MTA to drop the pension demands from the contract.  But, he doesn't want that.  He wants to play tough guy, to set a precedent of opposition that will deter other unions from striking, and to set the population against the union.

Thing is, the "tough guy" mayor stchick works in NYC and Bloomie knows it.

What people need to be reminded about, though, is that Bloomberg's real responsibility, in this case, is not to set precedents for future contract negotiations but to get ther subways running again and if he has to give in to do that, he should give in, at least a bit.  He's trying to make 9-11 out of this.  Let's all band together against this disaster!  But that's not what's called for.  He should be pressuring a state government agency to make whatever deals it needs to make rather than praising people for walking across the bridge, as if we all have some sort of duty to show the union that we can get by without them. 

I wish the TWU would have hired buses and vans and provided shuttles for people trying to get around the city. Perhaps merely a token gesture but great PR and great video for the media:

Heroic Transit Workers Say Their Fight Not With New Yorkers - Provide Free Shuttles/Buses.

That would have worked.

I work at an organization that helps people returning from prison find jobs.  A lot of them have children, and their average salary is less than $8/hr.  The fact that the TWU is willing to screw them over because they feel they are being given insufficient access to the middle class, makes thier rhetoric about solidarity ring hollow.

Isn't it a bit myopic to say that it's the TWU "screwing over" re-entering prisoners rather than a racially skewed system of justice, discriminatory employers, or the rapid expansion of the low-wage service economy?

The anti-union commentators in response to this post are surprisingly unconcerned with the devastation of the middle class and the fading ability of workers to organize to protect themselves from the exorbitant demands of capital.  What has changed in the American economy to justify a shrinking of pension benefits for transit workers other than the growing power of employers over workers in the Clinton-Bush years and the pullback of governmental subsidies for expansion of social welfare benefits for Americans?  Everyone seems to assume that workers deserve less, without interrogating the underlying premises of the dispute.

As another New Yorker, I have to agree that the union has really done a terrible job of framing why they needed to strike, and in particular, why this week. Yes, the MTA (For which, in most cases, read Pataki) has been less then helpful, at times, but in the hours before the strike was called, they made substantial concessions, moving much closer to the union's stated position.

The final offer was 3-4-4 percent wage increaes, added a holiday to the schedule that the union said it wanted and made a huge move on the retirement age issue. Yes, it included a B-scale for the retirement, offering 6% input to the pensoin for ne hires, rather than 2%. (Roughly, the size of the wage increase offered, and only on new hires) B-scales are problematic, but the union basically took a brand new offer and walked on it.

That's the start of a huge PR problem. Yes, Bloomberg has a bit of a tin ear, but, not that tin. The TWU local has placed itself in a really hard to explain position, and hasn't explained it well. Touissant may be a bright man, but he's not a great speaker, and his last few days of communication haven't centered around an explanation as to why this strike had to happen, and had to happen now.

The teachers went years without a contract and didn't walk. There are other MTA unions years past a current contract and still working. The TWU really needs to be able to explain, in sound bite form, why they are walking the picket line, and if they can't, they are going to have a hard time getting much sympathy.

All the players in this mess are screaming a lot, and saying very little. Pataki, has, on the whole, done almost nothing constructive, other than hector. (He's busy looking to please a republican audience which will crucify him in the presidential primaries, and it shows) Bloomberg doesn't run the MTA, he can make a lot of noise, but on the whole, he's motivated to voice the anger of the millions of people who are being forced to deal with this, not 34,000 people who supported his oppontent in November.

What we haven't heard, to speak of, is anything from the two democrates who want to replace Pataki. Both Spitzer and Souzi have been pretty much slient. I'd love to hear a well articulated story about how the MTA's a mess because Pataki's been forcing them to borrow like a drunken republican, and why don't we fix that, so we don't have to argue over how to fund decent wages?

The TWU needs to articulate what they really are fighting over. Respect sounds nice, around the union hall, it doesn't convey a lot of points you can negotiate. They're on fairly shaky grounds with a lot of people who ought to support them, when it looks like they called this over a few poercentage points, for new hires, or wanting a wage increase that's bigger than many working clas sguys will see in the next few years.

- David

You mean Hispanic Americans and African Americans can't be selfish or thuggish? Cool!

Having leverage is different than using it.  The threat of a strike could have been used for a long time in order to get a better deal.  In fact, the threat of a strike actually got TWU a better deal in just one weekend!

That said, I don't think they should have gone on strike --certainly not that soon.

First, they don't seem to have a message or a reason to strike that is so monumental.  They have a deal they don't like in part of a part of that deal.  This deal would not go into effect without ratification.  They could have kept negotiating.

Heck, even an impasse panel might have been the thing with so little separating both sides.

But it's like the TWU Local officials had no plan for what to do in the event of a strike.  What message to put out, how to justify it, etc.  They seem to forget that the public pays their salaries and they need to be communicating with the public on why this strike was so necessary.  The lack of this strikes me as incompetence.

The other reason is that they should have known (but don't seem to know) that the PR operation on the other side would be loud and vigorous and Pataki and Bloomberg would get a lot of coverage.  TWU Local got nothing to compare to that, and no message either!

Lastly, what a disaster, they are striking without support of their national parent labor union, which has said essentially "negotiate...you are not legally allowed to strike".  And that brings up the law, which their strike is violating, while inconvencing the customers, clients and potential supporters, whom they are alienating by striking so soon over not enought o strike so soon over. 

One thing labor needs is stronger public relations.  In 9 out of 10 unions I see, all I see is this rah rah approach to public speaking that is totally unaware, or oblivious to the fact that they are communicating to a larger audience that is either not union, or not sympathetic.  Stronger PR would help, even if it didn't change the overall picture.

Even without a right to strike, the TWU does have some leverage.  I believe that unlike other public unions in NY, the TWU, by creating an impasse, can force binding arbitration.  While that course is uncertain for both parties, it does provide some pushback against the MTA because it forces the MTA into a situation in which it is not in control and in which the terms are dictated by an arbitrator.

Let's not ignore union politics here.  Roger Toussaint was elected (about four years ago) as a "get-tough" candidate who would restore the TWU's glory days -- defined by most workers as Mike Quill's strikes in 1966 and 1980.  Still, he was criticized from his left for not holding out for more last time, and those voices have only grown stronger in the interim. 

At the strike-authorization vote at the Javits Center two weeks ago, many members wore buttons reading something along the lines of "TWU can't win without a strike."  And when Toussaint tried to lead the familiar call-and-response of: "What do we want? Contract!"  the membership instead spontaneously responded with "Strike!"

So, even though the union seemed to be on a hell of a hot streak at the table Monday night, it's not shocking that Toussaint took his chips and walked away without cashing them in -- I think a lot of members (maybe not a majority, but close) would have criticized any deal that came without a strike.

Knowing that, the MTA could have made it easier on Toussaint to be responsible by presenting honest reports on the state of its finances -- which are legitimately shaky.  But since 2002, when the authority engaged in a WorldCom-style accounting dodge to safely delay a fare hike past "Gov." Pataki's re-election, it's been increasingly difficult to decipher what's really going on.

But let's start with one truth:  NYS taxpayers subsidized MTA operations to the tune of $3 BILLION last year.  That was $1 billion less than originally expected -- hence the celebrated "surplus."  And much of that outperformance came from a non-recurring surge in real-estate-related taxes -- not something you want to build a baseline contract around.

Rational management would have recognized that these negotiations were the single biggest issue facing the MTA this year, and would have spent at least the last 6 months spelling out their story to both the union and the public.  This management spent the last 6 months entertaining fanciful ideas about how they could spend their glorious windfall, and only after they were done did they turn their attention to the talks.  No wonder the workers thought there was a pot of gold there, even thought there ain't.

So here we are -- the union wanted to strike, and did.  The MTA knew that, and instead of approaching the negotiations thoughtfully, threw gasoline on the fire.

Bah. Humbug!