Alan Miller
posted 26 January 2006

Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union (TWU) voted to come out on strike against the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) over pay and pensions on Tuesday 20 December 2005. The stopping of work by 33,700 members across the five boroughs was the first time in over two and a half decades that there had been such a stoppage. Quickly rhetoric started flying in every direction.

Over the duration of the 60 hour strike, which shut down the entire subway and bus service, name-calling became the order of the day. Governor Pataki called the strike illegal while Mayor Bloomberg said that union leaders had acted 'thuggishly'. Touissant retorted, unfortunately, by claiming that this strike was in the same vein as Rosa Parks' act and Martin Luther King's struggle (the MTA agreed to make Martin Luther King's birthday a holiday). He attempted to present the issue in terms of some kind of civil rights battle - especially as the Local 100 is comprised of many black, Latino and east Asian workers.

Casting the strike as an issue of civil rights in an attempt to solicit goodwill or sympathy from the public (against the onslaught of distasteful tabloid coverage such as The New York Post calling the strikers 'rats') was a defensive and misguided strategy. Worse than this, however, workers from the Local 100 of the TWU were used as a stage army in the service of the union leadership's negotiation strategy, without being engaged in discussions about what could be hoped for or expected. Then, as the going got tough, with the Taylor Laws being invoked to fine the union $1million per striking day and to fine workers two days pay for every day out on strike and Roger Touissant fearing imprisonment, the strike was called off.

This has left many people wondering what the purpose of the strike had been. Essentially the two parties were disputing pay and, perhaps more significantly, pensions, which have become an area of increasing contention in both the public and private sectors internationally. But there was precious little public discussion of these issues away from the negotiation table. While city leaders blamed strikers for damaging Christmas business sales in New York and holding everyone to ransom, the union called off the strike without having a contract agreed upon. This was presented largely as due to mediators and Bloomberg's behind-the-scenes lobbying skills while maintaining a tough public stance, but in the end what it really represents is a downgraded idea about people. Engaging people in any type of activity to try to change conditions should be based upon the idea that they can have an active input and shape the outcome. This relies upon a critical discourse with those involved and honesty in terms of aims, objectives and attempted outcomes. Simply mobilising people without doing so can only end up provoking cynicism and passivity.

While Daniel Gree in the TPM Café blog remarked that 'A union that cannot strike is a social club, the Wall Street Journal noted that returning back to work without either a contract or indeed an amnesty from the massive fines simply confirmed the weakened hand of the union. Some have argued that the union has raised the issue on the national landscape to prevent public sector employees having these measures imposed upon them without a fight although it is difficult to see how that conclusion can be drawn so far. Many will draw the conclusion that this fight was not thought out well and discussed properly.

While it is ironic for Mr Bloomberg, a billionaire, to tell us all how living in NY is a 'luxury item' that residents happily pay for the pleasure of living here, the Fiscal Policy Institute (a labour-funded group) has pointed out that middle class incomes in NY have declined by nearly 12 percent relative to inflation in the last 13 years. Property prices have shot up by 85 percent and although the top fifth of New York earners have increased their incomes by 25 percent, inflation runs close to 5 percent in the city. (see, In pricey NY, transit workers feeling pinched, Washington Post), There is a strong case to be made for a better standard of living.

These issues are not going to simply go away, though an entrenched negativity about what can be achieved and done about anything is a real problem that we are facing today. All sides in the recent dispute seemed to demonstrate a callous display of contempt for the positive participation of ordinary people in these questions. Perhaps though, the silliness of the t-shirt that has been brought out to commemorate the shut down points to the need for some taking people more seriously.

Alan Miller is director of the NY Salon.