Just saw the press conference. The mediators asked the union to return to work to continue talks. The union will vote on it today. Have your fingers crossed.

Annoucement from the mediator says that subways/buses could be running by later today.

YES!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051222/ap_ ... sit_strike

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051222/ts_ ... newyork_dc

Great News!

If the buses and subways begin running again it is only because the WTU is facing heavy daily fines and it's executive staff didn't want to go to jail. We need to thank the mayor, and the governor for pressing the WTU hard for their illegal activities. This only shows that the WTU was greatly mistaken about how much public support it could obtain and we should be grateful that nobody gave into their illegal tactics.

F U - WTU!!!!!!

In your face Roger Toussaint!!!!

syntax73 wrote:If the buses and subways begin running again it is only because the WTU is facing heavy daily fines and it's executive staff didn't want to go to jail. We need to thank the mayor, and the governor for pressing the WTU hard for their illegal activities. This only shows that the WTU was greatly mistaken about how much public support it could obtain and we should be grateful that nobody gave into their illegal tactics.

F U - MTU!!!!!!

In your face Roger Toussaint!!!!

Or perhaps a less idealogically driven explanation would be that the mediator prevailed.

I thank Pataki for nominating Peter S. Kalikow a hack with no experience in mass transit to run the MTA. It is nice to see that Bush is not the only one capable of pulling a Fema. Brownie is to Bush what Kalikow is to Pataki.

It's just like the left to not give credit where credit is due.

syntax73 wrote:If the buses and subways begin running again it is only because the WTU is facing heavy daily fines and it's executive staff didn't want to go to jail. We need to thank the mayor, and the governor for pressing the WTU hard for their illegal activities. This only shows that the WTU was greatly mistaken about how much public support it could obtain and we should be grateful that nobody gave into their illegal tactics.

F U - MTU!!!!!!

In your face Roger Toussaint!!!!

Oh please. Maybe the strike will stop because the TWU (not WTU) will get a better deal than before from the MTA.

Think about this - whatever the final deal is, the MTA could have avoided the strike by offering it to the TWU before. Or you know, maybe the MTA could have avoided the strike by not breaking the Taylor Law themselves.

Of course, you people probably blame the baseball players when they strike, instead of the owners.

jazzyd wrote:I thank Pataki for nominating Peter S. Kalikow a hack with no experience in mass transit to run the MTA. It is nice to see that Bush is not the only one capable of pulling a Fema. Brownie is to Bush what Kalikow is to Pataki.

As a moderate I would like to point out that the Democrats are not immune to hack appintments and wasteful government either. It is we the people who should be blamed for allowing it to happen over and over again no matter what administration is in power, locally, statewide or nationally.

I do blame the players when baseball goes on strike! Who else?

Strikes (when they are legal) are intended to be measures of last resort to defend the health, welfare and safety of the union members or to protest illegal activities by management that endanger the same.

They aren't for the well-off to complain that they aren't as well-off as management. Assuming you're a capitalist, why should they be? If you're not a capitalist, I already know why you think they should be.

Striking should not be done lightly, for the same reason hat frivilous discrimination or sexual harassment claims should not be made. Because it trivializes real problems and dilutes the impact of available remedies when such things are truly needed.

It insults those who were beaten by trust strikebreakers in the early 20th century for baseball players and MTA pension holders to strike over these sort of routine contractual issues upon which they weren't that far apart to begin with.

And the splash damage of the strike upon working people far less well-off than the MTA workers in their worst nighmares serves to destroy any moral high ground that the union could otherwise claim.

KaptanKa0s wrote:

jazzyd wrote:As a moderate I would like to point out that the Democrats are not immune to hack appintments and wasteful government either. It is we the people who should be blamed for allowing it to happen over and over again no matter what administration is in power, locally, statewide or nationally.

Could not agree more. Both Democrats and Republicans are guilty. Republicans are just craftier. We the people have very short mammaries when it comes to putting people in office and then shirking our responsibilties as voters when they turn out to be crooked.

This problem is not exclusive to voters however. We learn it from watching our goverment. Just look at our foreign policy. We remove Moussadeh from Iran and replace him with the Shah. The Iranians resent having an American puppet run their country and replace the Shah with Khomeni. We then have to arm Saddam to counter Iran. We then arm Bin Laden to counter the Russians. It is no coincidence that many of these actions have come back to bite us in the ass. Do we ever reflect and admit errors? Very rarely. It took Bush 1000 days and 2000 US lives later to admit he had made mistakes. Our arrogance and complete failiure to understand history just continues tp exsacerbate the problem.

STRIKE OVER STRIKE OVER

All workers that are assigned for the pm rush are to report to work.

Well said Jonathan. Well said indeed.

Good Lord jazzyd, how did you turn a local domestic issue into an international one? They are not related. What Bush does in Iraq has no bearing on what the MTA and the workers did here. There is enough arguing about the war in Iraq elsewhere, no need to bring it up here.

I actually agree with him on the international stuff, Neil. But he forgot to throw in the coolest US puppet of them all...



MANUEL ANTONIO NORIEGA!

(a.k.a. the Panamanian strongman)

Brouhaha wrote:I actually agree with him on the international stuff, Neil. But he forgot to throw in the coolest US puppet of them all...

I am sure you do. But at least form a new topic for that discussion and be sure to mark it NSR. I want no part of the vitriol that will ensue.

I want no part of the vitriol that will ensue.

So go'way...!

Anyway, people will play nice on this board, because they know what will happen if they don't...

http://www.nyscooterclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3

But I'm not really interested in a political discussion here anyway. I do enough of that on my blog.

I don't really want to get this aspect of the thread rolling again, but I do want to make one comment re: unions and their benefits.
Yes unions serve a certain good purpose in some industries and they have historically improved working conditions, standards of living through pay and benefit increases, etc. However, in the recent past the most powerful unions in this country, whether it be SAG, UAW, the entire airline industry, etc. have not recognized that there is a point at which their demands have to stop, otherwise the industry that they are working in will collapse. One only has to look at the shoddy state of U.S. auto manufacturers, the airline industry, the steel industry, and yes the film industry to see that rising labor costs are the engines that are driving (or have driven) these domestic industries into the ground. A month doesn't go by when you read, either in the Entertainment pages or the Business, about all the movies being made in Canada or Czech, because of the incredibly high labor costs to make the same film in the US, esp. in NYC. How Toronto, Vancover, etc. all stand in for the real thing. US steel manufacturing is a shadow of its former glory because rising labor costs in the 70's effectively made it impossible for those businesses to survive and as a result the former Iron Belt is the Rust Belt. The same thing is about to happen to Detroit where GM and Ford are on the brink of financial disaster and bankruptcy after years of teetering on the edge.

Unions can and have done a lot of good for workers in the USA; however, they are stuck with outmoded thinking. Increasing benefits and wages in the same way as 50 yrs ago is (and has been) a surefire way to elimate the very jobs they are trying to protect thus leaving the workers in a much worse place than if they had decided to contribute a portion of their wages to health care or pensions.

While NYC transit isn't going to die in the same way as the steel industry or see outsourcing of conductor jobs to India, continued demands like the union was making this time, will only serve to hurt them in the long run (which may not be as far off as they might think).

Not trying to antagonize, but these are points that rarely get made in such heated discussions and regardless of which side you fall: union or management, they are valid and bear thinking about.

We the people have very short mammaries

You're kidding, right?

ROFLMAO!

GateXC wrote:Unions can and have done a lot of good for workers in the USA; however, they are stuck with outmoded thinking.

True indeed which is why their influence has waned greatly over the past few decades and will continue to do so unless they modernize.

When SAG went on strike commercially they were trying to make a statement to the theatrical producers but it backfired. The upshot was that production companies went overseas to shoot and never came back. The domestic industry still has not recovered.