Court Fines NYC Transit Union $1M a Day

[RickSp]

Quote by: gr8fuldaniel Why dont we just take that 6% from the upper echalons of management, from those hotshots making $100 k and up? Why oppress those on the bottom of the heap? Those who cant even afford to live in the neighborhoods where they work?

Get real. The average union bus driver is getting paid over $60,000 a year. That's the average. Folks with senority get more. Transit workers make more than cops, teachers or social workers. The police, teachers and sanitation owrker's unions among others have all gone through tough and acrimonious negotiations but have all finally reached agreements without going out on strike.

The union is screwing all the New York workers who can't get into work, who get paid a whole hell of a lot less than the average transit worker, and who won't get paid if they don't work.

So spare me all the blather about "oppression". The union bosses are destroying their own local and screwing hundreds of thousands of lower paid workers in the process.

[gr8fuldaniel]

Quote by: Rick Get real. The average bus driver is getting paid over $60,000 a year.

That should be minimum wage. The cost of living is about that.

Why penalize those who make less than that, just for wanting to make a living?

Quote by: Rick The union is screwing all the New York workers who can't get into work, who get paid a whole hell of a lot less than the average transit worker, and who won't get paid if they don't work.

The UNION isnt screwing the New York workers. The MTA has done it. By trying to screw the little guy. For TEN frigging Years!!

[brien]

Quote by: shield772 http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...nsit_strike_37 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.

The Mayor knew this strike was coming and what did he do to avert it?

Maybe it is an "illegal" strike but all strikes by law are illegal when it comes to the Transit Union. Maybe the government should just make all Union strikes "illegal" and be done with it.

It really doesn't matter what the Transit workers Union is striking for, the fact remains they have ground the city to a halt. Now the people affected have to deal with it. For example, when the "perky" Katy Couric was asked about it this moring on NBC, she commented, "Oh, I am one of the lucky ones, I am not affected by it." Well of course. While people remain stranded in Brooklyn miles from their jobs in Manhattan and are being fired for not showing up for their duties, Katy snickers how she is not affected by it. Business after business suffers lost revenue because people can't buy their goods. And on and on.

So who is at fault for the satisfaction of all the finger pointers. Both the City and the Union. The city because they knew this was coming and could have settled before now, and the Union because it knew that striking Christmas week would best hurt the City. They are all a bunch of selfish grinches who need a lesson in human compassion. Unfortunately, it is the common everyday person who suffers, as usual.

Perhaps the answer is to fire the lot of them all. Pull a Regan like in the PATCO situation. Fire the Union. Let the mayor declare that the Union workers have 24 hours to return to work, or face replacement. Replace the union with non union drivers and vote the politicians and the mayor out of office, if that is what the voters decide, in the next election. Let the people decide. What a novel idea.

Let the voting public show these thugs that they can't get away with using the general public as a pawn and a hostage in negoitiating tactics that are designed to hurt the greater good of the public at large.

[RickSp]

Quote by: gr8fuldaniel That should be minimum wage. The cost of living is about that. Why penalize those who make less than that, just for wanting to make a living? The UNION isnt screwing the New York workers. The MTA has done it. By trying to screw the little guy. For TEN frigging Years!!

I live here and you are telling me from California about the cost of living in New York? That's idiotic.

Your rants are absurd. The national Transit Workers Union has told New York union members to go back to work. The parent union doesn't even support the strike. You nonsense about the "little guy" getting screwed by the MTA is just so much West Coast crap. The "little guys" are not the middle class union workers but all the real working class folks who can't get to jobs.

Rosemary Scanlon, a former chief economist for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said that much of the hardship is tough to gauge, occurring person by person and small business by small business, but that she thought the city's figures [$400 million per day] were about right. "The nursing aides, the nannies, the store clerks, the people with back-room jobs at restaurants - these are the hardest hit, but we can't see it as readily as the big businesses," said Ms. Scanlon, who teaches at New York University. "There's a real income class difference in who can work at home on the computer and who can't, and that's one of the biggest changes from previous strikes."

As Traffic Dwindles, Strike Inflicts Broad Economic Pain

[brien]

Quote by: RickSp I live here and you are telling me from California about the cost of living in New York? That's idiotic. Your rants are absurd. The national Transit Workers Union has told New York union members to go back to work. The parent union doesn't even support the strike. You nonsense about the "little guy" getting screwed by the MTA is just so much West Coast crap. The "little guys" are not the middle class union workers but all the real working class folks who can't get to jobs. As Traffic Dwindles, Strike Inflicts Broad Economic Pain

A dose of reality. My nephew, who lives in Brooklyn, has already been fired from his job at TGIF in Times Square for not showing up when he lives miles from the restaurant with no other way to get to the job. Great compassion from every last bastardly grinch involved.
Merry Christmas NYC. :rolleyes:

[Chris]

Quote by: Nono Hope that's irony.

Its sarcasm actually... intentions can get mixed on boards.

[bishop]

i can understand the union wanting a better deal, but this is ridiculous... i would like to see bloomberg pull a reagan and fire the union. hell, if bush did the same thing reagan did, i'd support him in that regard.

at the same time, while failures in labor negotiations aren't atypical, bloomberg should've involved himself in this matter a while ago.. i don't have much pity for the unions at all.

[gr8fuldaniel]

So, I guess everyone would agree to MTA just taking 10% or 25% or even Half of the paycheck from the new hires. For TEN YEARS? Whatever they (Executives and slave drivers alike) say goes. Their terms have to be accepted. No negotiating. The Big Dog makes the rules.

The Neo-Con agenda is all about eliminating the middle class. And they want to do it 6% at a time.

[Osborn F Enready]

I'd like to see it too, as it would grow support for my anti-government position and further justify the arguments I have about over-reaching government intervention.

[gr8fuldaniel]

Quote by: Osborn F Enready I'd like to see it too, as it would grow support for my anti-government position ..........

You were talking to bishop, right?

[gr8fuldaniel]

I live here and you are telling me from California about the cost of living in New York? That's idiotic.

OK, so why dont you tell me how much a two bedroom apt. goes for in Gotham.

[RickSp]

Quote by: gr8fuldaniel OK, so why dont you tell me how much a two bedroom apt. goes for in Gotham.

Why? You thinking of moving? Don't try to get a job as a city transit worker. They are so well paid that every job has thirty applicants. They have benefits and wages at least 30% higher than transit workers for private companies.

And the 6% you keep moaning about only applies to future hires.

[RickSp]

Quote by: brien A dose of reality. My nephew, who lives in Brooklyn, has already been fired from his job at TGIF in Times Square for not showing up when he lives miles from the restaurant with no other way to get to the job. Great compassion from every last bastardly grinch involved. Merry Christmas NYC. :rolleyes:

Yup, the folks getting hurt are the ones who can least afford it, not union workers with fat pensions.

[gr8fuldaniel]

Yup, the folks getting hurt are the ones who can least afford it, not union workers with fat pensions.

And not the, even fatter owners.
The only reason its not legal to strike (if its true), is that the owners have more political power. The owners of a corporation have the legal right to pack up and move their offices off-shore (in the case of Manhatten, the port authority is its own government seperate from New York city) The elite have all the perks while the workers cant even take a few days off to protest pay cuts.

[bishop]

the union could have continued to negotiate while working...

when the wealthy make decisions that hurt lots of working people, i'm certain that you'd be one of the first to condemn them.. in this scenario, a comparatively small number of people are hurting thousands (if not millions) of people.

the mta has an unfunded pension liability of roughly $2 BILLION.. this portion of the entire union is making completely unrealistic demands - they refuse any concessions and want to increase costs. all of this with an unfunded liability of $2 billion.. the simple fact that it's that deep in the red, despite several fare hikes (plus the fact that millions of people ride the system every single day), shows just how generous these benefits the union recieves truly are.

greedy bastards aren't solely rich.. and lots more poor people are being hurt because of them.

[RickSp]

Quote by: gr8fuldaniel And not the, even fatter owners. The only reason its not legal to strike (if its true), is that the owners have more political power. The owners of a corporation have the legal right to pack up and move their offices off-shore (in the case of Manhatten, the port authority is its own government seperate from New York city) The elite have all the perks while the workers cant even take a few days off to protest pay cuts.

Once again you never let reality intrude on your wildass ideology. The strike is illegal because the state's Taylor Law prohibits strikes by public employees. Your ranting about "corporations" is typically beside the point. The teachers, the cops and the sanitation workers, all of whom make less than the transit workers, all managed to negotiate contracts without strikes.

You obvious don't give a damn about the hundreds of thousands of low income workers hurt by the strike. And don't go blaming the MTA again. They didn't walk from the table. The union did. The union local is committing suicide and hurting lots of New Yorkers in the process. And you keep riffing on your idiotic fantasies.

[gr8fuldaniel]

Once again you never let reality intrude on your wildass ideology. The strike is illegal because the state's Taylor Law prohibits strikes by public employees.

I hadnt looked it up before I posted that. But it doesnt change the fact that it SHOULD be legal to strike. Are these people just supposed to rely on the kindness of those with the control of the money?

Your ranting about "corporations" is typically beside the point.

Actually, isnt the MTA a non-profit Corporation? What I was implying was, that it is more of the same. The elite are granted all the power. Labor has little say. Labor is no less important than the bosses. I think the strikers have proven that in the last two days.

The teachers, the cops and the sanitation workers, all of whom make less than the transit workers, all managed to negotiate contracts without strikes.

So, I guess MTA was just seeing what they could get away with first. If it worked, they would do the same to other public workers.

I will admit I dont have any personal experience with unions. But I dont have to

[Rainbow]

Quote by: brien A dose of reality. My nephew, who lives in Brooklyn, has already been fired from his job at TGIF in Times Square for not showing up when he lives miles from the restaurant with no other way to get to the job. Great compassion from every last bastardly grinch involved. Merry Christmas NYC. :rolleyes:

All the businesses in NYC are fully aware of extreme limitations with concern to functionality of public transportation. It takes much longer to reach Manhattan, but it does not mean it is impossible.
Either your nephew is a handicapped person, or he/she worked for unusual employer.
It could be, he/she did not tell you the whole story.

[Rainbow]

Quote by: bishop the mta has an unfunded pension liability of roughly $2 BILLION.. this portion of the entire union is making completely unrealistic demands - they refuse any concessions and want to increase costs. all of this with an unfunded liability of $2 billion.. the simple fact that it's that deep in the red, despite several fare hikes (plus the fact that millions of people ride the system every single day), shows just how generous these benefits the union recieves truly are. greedy bastards aren't solely rich.. and lots more poor people are being hurt because of them.

You probably are not familiar what Union asks for.
Mass-media does not provide all the informations on the most vital issues that strike is all about. Except for few local stations, stream mass-media provides people with a lot of information, except for the core on that subject.

As a note aside, I am curious whether there are some obstacles all the Unions to join together, as One. It would give labor workers a tremendous power that no politician could afford to ignore (it), ever.

[bishop]

Quote by: Rainbow You probably are not familiar what Union asks for. Mass-media does not provide all the informations on the most vital issues that strike is all about. Except for few local stations, stream mass-media provides people with a lot of information, except for the core on that subject. As a note aside, I am curious whether there are some obsticles all the Unions to join together, as One. It would give labor workers a tremendous power that no politician could afford to ignore (it), ever.

perhaps you are the one who isn't familiar with what the union wants.. it's all about the pension.. the pension that's currently unfunded by $2 billion, that the union thinks will just pay for itself with money made out of thin air.