Transit Strike in New York!

By Nicholas Stix At 3 a.m., Roger Toussaint, the president of the Transport Workers’ Union (TWU), representing 34,000 New York City subway workers and bus drivers, announced that his union has decided to strike against the Metropolitan Transit Authority, the state agency which administers the city’s subways and public bus lines. All subways and trains presently on routes will go to all stops and discharge passengers, before going out of service and on strike. The city’s last transit strike was in 1980; it lasted 11 days. New York State’s Taylor Law forbids all public service employees from striking. Roger Toussaint and other union officials could be jailed, and the union could be fined millions of dollars, both of which have happened in the past. Toussaint blamed the MTA, New York State Gov. George Pataki, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, both Republicans, for the strike. Toussaint had demanded pay raises ofr eight percent for each of the next three years, and for the pension age to be reduced from 55 to 50. The MTA offered wage hikes of three percent over the same period, with new workers having to contribute two percent of their salaries to their health insurance, and current workers paying higher co-payments for doctor's visits and prescriptions. The city has developed an emergency plan, permitting taxis and livery cabs to pick up riders at bus stops and to pick up multiple riders, practices that are usually forbidden, while imposing price controls on what drivers can charge. However, at the least, hundreds of thousands of the over seven million riders who daily depend on the MTA will be left stranded. At 3:25 a.m., MTA Chairman Peter Kallikow announced that he is filing contempt of court papers with State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, suggesitng that Roger Toussaint may be jailed, and clearly said that workers will be fined two days' pay for every day they remain out on strike.