The Strike

For what it's worth, this angry op-ed from The Observer expresses my feelings about the strike exactly.

DOES IT MATTER TO MR. TOUSSAINT that the people he is hurting most are less-affluent workers who don't have the luxury of working at home in front of a computer, who can't simply blow off a few days around the holidays? These workers--health and hospital staff, clerks, salespeople, cashiers and others--simply have to get to work somehow. And they are finding a way to do so, but no thanks to Mr. Toussaint. He is costing them time and, if for some reason they can't get to work or show up late, he's costing them money. Many of these lower middle-class and middle-class workers don't receive 8 percent annual raises and have very little in the way of public health benefits and a pension. These are the people Mr. Toussaint is victimizing. This is a brutal attack on the working poor and low-income New Yorkers who depend on mass transit.

I think the strike will prove to be a massive miscalculation on the part of the TWU. The only question is how long it will take them to figure it out.

On the other hand, I was on the Upper East Side for a few hours yesterday, and seeing Madison and Fifth Avenue entirely free of cars for as far as the eye could see was truly magical. They should have special car-free holidays on celebrated Manhattan streets throughout the year -- that is, without filling them up with street fairs and parades. Soho without cars would be absolutely brilliant.

Comments

[roseg]

DOES IT MATTER TO YOU that the Observer may be presenting a skewed and deliberately manipulative view of things and that drawing on tired yet evocative themes like the "less affluent" is a patronising device they may be using to make "more affluent but basically well meaning" readers like you fall for simplistic positions? Not to mention how creative they are with the facts/details.

Would you prefer that the transport workers become the next industry group to fall into that ghetto of "less affluent" people who the Observer so piously laments? Go read my "Off the rails" post for another biased view. That way you might at least end up with some balance.

Sorry if this sounds aggressive - I don't mean to be. I just get so frustrated when people who are intelligent and priveleged (such as the journalist at the Observer, and you), who don't have to drive trains for a living or make do with salaries and conditions that shrink with time, encourage conflict between groups who may BOTH be disadvantaged or in need of support. If you think the strike should have been avoided, go ask the big boss why he pulled a swifty on the union in the final hour of negotiations.

[Bob Lister]

What the above poster said. And this:

For three decades, business and political leaders have been chipping away at the social benefits that came out of the New Deal, union struggles and the expansive, post-World War II years of Western capitalism. Driven at first by economics, but increasingly by ideology, the crusade to dissolve all employer and state responsibility for individual welfare has swept like a grim reaper through pension plans, health insurance, labor rights and minimum wages. New York transit workers are fighting to stop that trend in their particular domain, not for themselves but for the next generation of workers. They are fighting against the lie that abstract, neutral economic necessity, not the ideas and interests of the rich and powerful, are driving the demolition of what remains of social solidarity. Their fight is worth supporting in itself, for the dignity and well-being of a group of hardworking women and men.

www.thenation.com/doc/20060109/freeman

[Patrick Nielsen Hayden]

Doesn't look like a "massive miscalculation on the part of the TWU" at the moment: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/29/nyregion/nyregionspecial3/29mta.html?ex=1293512400&en=02fff629e330d314&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

[David Jacobs]

I'm extremely sad that Unions seem to have lost the right to strike, even in the most liberal city in the world. It's not even that I disagree with you, Steven, it's just that people have so calmly accepted the deep criminalization ("illegal," "thuggish") of dissent.

[Steven Johnson]

I feel a little bad that I tossed up that transit strike quote and brief endorsement, and then went on holiday with the family for ten days. I should have probably made myself a little clearer, given that it's such a divisive issue. I totally agree with David (and others) that it's lamentable that striking is by default thought of as "thuggish" behavior, and I definitely think that labor has to have some kind of collective organization fighting for its rights in various industry. I just didn't think that the transit workers had a particularly good case with this particular strike. But I have not followed the news at all since we left town, so maybe I had it wrong -- I'll try to read through some of the coverage this week, and maybe post a followup...

[Joe]

Labor negotiations are the highest of high stakes card games, and the TWU had all their chips riding on two things: 1) that they had the stones to actually strike, and 2) public support. And the Observer Op-ed points out why #2 is scarce. TWU workers have good pay, job security, benefits, and a retirement plan. Millions of people in New York go to work every day with none of these things.
Thing is, I'm usually a union guy, and I think organizing is one of the truly democratic ways of countering the wealthiest class in this country. Since 1979, median family incomes have risen by 18% but the incomes of the top 1% have gone up by 200%. 200! We should be thrilled when a union takes it to The Man! We should try to organize anywhere and everywhere.
But we don't. And I can't say why, exactly. Might have something to do with the phrase "Not now, I'm on a break." Just because we don't get to say that to our bosses doesn't mean we would.

[france]

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