December 23, 2005

BLOOMBERG TO BIG APPLE TAXPAYERS, DROP DEAD::

Workers Choose to Come Back and Talk (STEVEN GREENHOUSE and SEWELL CHAN, 12/23/05, NY Times)

Thousands of New York City transit workers put down their picket signs and streamed into bus depots and railyards last night to restart the nation's largest transit system, after leaders of their union agreed to a tentative framework for a new contract and ended a 60-hour strike that hobbled the city. [...]

The abrupt return - many strikers simply laid down their placards and walked into the buildings they had been picketing - capped a day of fast-moving developments in a labor showdown that just a day before seemed headed for an intractable and ugly stalemate.

Despite the end of the strike, a final settlement of the dispute remains to be reached. But officials hinted that in exchange for the union's ending the strike, the authority would significantly scale back or even abandon its insistence on less-generous pensions for future workers. In return, the union would consider having its members pay more for health insurance. The negotiations will now resume under an agreement among all parties not to speak with reporters.


No Reagan or Thatcher, he.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 23, 2005 8:05 AM
Comments

As I understand it, the MTA is ultimately a state agency, so more of the blame falls on Pataki.

Posted by: ratbert at December 23, 2005 8:10 AM

Newe York State also has the Taylor Law, which prohibits the firing of striking state/municipal workers, although fines are permissible.

Posted by: Ed Bush at December 23, 2005 9:54 AM

Too bad they didn't jail them.

Posted by: sharon at December 23, 2005 9:59 AM

Nor is he a Coolidge.

Posted by: jefferson park at December 23, 2005 1:54 PM

Seconding Brother Rat, Bloomberg did what he could do. You may criticize him if he allows the judge to remit the fines.

Posted by: Robert Schwartz at December 23, 2005 2:27 PM

Growing up in the NYC area in the 1950s, I remember the transit workers going on strike January 1 @ midnite.

So as to efficiently inconvenience out-of-towners in Times Square.

When did the TWU become so customer-friendly?

Posted by: John J. Coupal at December 23, 2005 10:31 PM
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