MTA, Must You Ruin Everything?
Dear MTA,Can you please, puleeze just give the Transit Worker's Union Local 100 their fucking pensions at age 55 and get this whole thing over with? You had a giant unexplainable surplus this year, which you stupidly chose to give away with bullshit riders discounts which really only benefitted tourists and pissed of New Yorkers anyway; that was a really stupid move, but okay, we're over it. Now you're holding out on the pension issue, and we're walking. In the fucking cold! Hi, MTA, have ya been outside lately? It ain't exactly summer ya know. The Red Cross is out there at the Brooklyn Bridge taking care of feezing commuters! The Red Cross! Last time I checked, this wasn't a war zone with refugees streaming to and fro, but these days it sure does look like it.
You know, MTA, if you just learned to manage your money a little better this wouldn't even be an issue. How many times have your father and I told you that holiday fare discounts are just not a smart way to spend your money? Sure, you win the hearts of the tourists, temporarily, but wouldn't a nice investment in your workers' pensions be even more gratifying in the long run? If you managed to have a surplus of several million dollars this year, you can do it next year and the year after that. Doesn't that sound nice, MTA? Hmmm? That way everyone wins out?
MTA, its not that I'm lazy and mind walking, because I don't. I would (and am currently doing so) gladly freeze for TWU Local 100, because I think they should get their fucking pensions at 55, after all, they put up with us assholes on a regular basis. But I have now twisted the same ankle a sum total of 16 times (and that's no exaggerration) and at this moment it is the size of a grapefruit. This is very painful to walk on, and even more painful to walk 30 fucking blocks on. I will now be forced to hobble into my film audition tomorrow, if I am even able to make it there at all, looking like a total freak.
I think my ankle is clearly contemplating a sympathy strike with the TWU, the slowdown has already begun.
MTA, this just isn't funny anymore. You may get as many publicity shots of Bloomberg walking across the Brooklyn Bridge as you like; you may sick Elliot Spitzer on the union leaders threatening jailtime (which will only increase the length of the strike you dipshits); and you may spin doctor this to villify the union, but they are holding to their cause so can you stop this pissing contest already and admit you were wrong? Come on, MTA, no one will think less of you for it, I promise.
Please? Before my leg has to be amputated already?
Sincerely (and painfully),
Synge
posted by Le Synge Bleu at 11:33 PM
10 Comments:
Synge-
Let me correct a couple things. That surplus is not the MTA's, it is ours. It is not unexplainable, it is a result of the fare hikes they made within the past couple of years. The union's demands are based on this surplus. The MTA cannot agree to their outrageous demands because they are based on money that will not replenish itself, without, of course, another fare hike. The TWU has no right to strike. It is against the law. Toussaint, who is the president of the TWU, is well on his way to bankrupting the union. Then, who will pay for these workers' pensions and health benefits. And one other thing, the MTA has asked for productivity increases and the TWU said not without a raise. Who gets an automatic raise for working harder? And who retires at 55? Do you know how much the transit workers get paid? Plus full benefits for them and their families. Plus a full pension. Plus life insurance. About 60k a year. Not fabulous for New York, but certainly comfortable. I know, I know. What kind of liberal am I?
MAH
skoehler-
they also get paid more than NYC teachers.
i'm not saying that teachers and the boys in blue (my not so lovely experiences aside - after all, my cousins a leiutenant in the nypd) don't absolutely deserve to be paid more...i'm just saying, and i stick to this, that the twu workers deserve their pension at 55. we all do. and bloomberg made it about himself - it wasn't toussaint that suddenly attacked bloomberg, the billionaire originated the fight and has made it about himself.
its over!
If the teachers, firefighters, police officers, and everyone else whose salaries people keep comparing to the MTA workers' salaries feel they deserve to be paid more, then they should do something about it. But that has nothing to do with how much the MTA workers make.
The MTA workers do a very hard job - they walk along those tracks all year long, risking their lives doing heavy labor right next to turbines that grind garbage up and the infamous 3rd rail. This is the type of work you can't really DO after 55 - and if you tried, you'd just be forced to quit, or you're end up severely injured.
But, hey - not all the workers do that hard stuff. Some of them sit in nice cushy boothes all day, or buses. Boothes or buses where they are either isolated for hours or assaulted by jerks and nice people acting like jerks. Since the last cutbacks, they are all alone, which is at best unnaturally lonely, and at worst dangerous.
Every year more and more jobs are cut back by the MTA, and they tell the workers they just can't afford to keep people on, or give them more of a raise. Then they do this surplus bullshit for tourists? Oh no. I'd be pissed too (I AM pissed, but more about how badly the MTA treats it's riders). Maybe there won't be a surplus next year, but who knows? There's no transparency with their books, so we just know what they tell us.
At the VERY least, the MTA could have taken care of all of this MONTHS ago. Instead they waited until the very last minute, knowing that the TWU was not allowed to strike, so wouldn't have any real leverage. Why assume that the TWU was counting on this being the "worst possible time of year"? Didn't the MTA know that when they decided to wait until now to negotiate a deal?
The TWU threatened a strike, and backed away from it at the last minute, and only then did the brass at the MTA agree to meet with the TWU leaders THAT'S RIDICULOUS!! The TWU couldn't back away from a strike twice, or they'd never be taken seriously. Their hand was forced.
So, I agree with Synge.
unfortunately, nothing has been totally resolved - they're going back on the job while still in negotiations. the mediator sounds positive, however. we'll see...
elizwho?- i'm sorry but...weren't you in NYC the last time this happened? it always goes down to the wire and i don't believe it's all the fault of the MTA. you're involved in the theatre, this is high drama of the first order. it's political theatre. if Toussaint believed so much in what he was doing why wasn't he (as well as the other TWU bosses) willing to go to jail, which is what was going to happen this afternoon? the reason that there is a media blackout is because Toussaint said he wouldn't back down, by putting up a media blackout he's saving face, so his members won't see, until it is too late, that that is exactly what he is doing. and as for the dangerous, isolated work these people do, if they cannot do this work after 55 move them to desk jobs. isolation and dealing with assholes is life. this is a job not a bed of fucking roses. anyone who deals with the public deals with the same thing. is their jobs are so miserable, then let them walk. they should be glad, as we all should, that they have jobs. and i'm not sure exactly how this is bloomberg's fault, other than the fact that he did not intervene in the negotiation, in which case i think the anger should be split between him and pataki. and once again, that surplus was not from some wild saving on the part of MTA, the bulk of it was from the bullshit fare increase of a couple of years ago. that money was ours, not the mta's and not the twu.
MAH
if the surplus was "ours", then why wasn't there a community vote on how the funds were used? why didn't the mta spend it on us?
my my mah, you're a tad bit angry and combative today aren't you?
the mta did spend it on you. i got a holiday bonus on my metrocard. i'm fired up about this because i think that the people who are saying that this is about the working man and standing up for labor are not seeing this in a larger context. synge, i love you, but your initial post didn't really paint an accurate or realistic picture of the facts and it pissed me off. you had every right to write that, it's your blog, but i had a right to respond. you and i have very different views on labor and unions, hence the Equity discussion at Little Shop of Horrors. i responded to elizwho's post because she seemed to be saying that this strike was mitigated in part, because the jobs are dangerous and they have to put up with jerks, which i think is absolutely absurd. the people that this strike hurts the most, the ones who have the most to lose are the ones who can least afford it. what about them? ok now i'm done.
mah
mah, i adore you. just wanted to make sure that was stated.
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