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December 20, 2005
Happy Holidays from your local transit workers
Updated Thursday
New York transit workers on Thursday called off a three-day subway and bus strike that caused havoc in America's most populous city at the height of the holiday season and which may have cost the economy $1 billion. Workers would soon be opening 26 subway routes and many local and express bus routes but it would take 10 to 18 hours to resume full operations.
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New York transit workers walked off the job for the first time in 25 years, stranding millions of people who rely on the bus and subway system each day. The strike shut down the entire subway and bus system, which carries 7 million daily passengers. The walkout violates a state law prohibiting strikes by public employees, and union members could face heavy fines. At the height of the holiday season when shoppers and tourists tend to fill the city, the strike could cost the city as much as $400 million a day, officials have warned.
The union and management have been battling over wage hikes, health-care and pension costs and employees' retirement age. The union disputed the MTA's contention that cutbacks in benefits are necessary, noting the agency has a $1 billion surplus.
Cindy
Comments
I'm convinced they knew I was coming.
K
Brain matter deposited by: Kenster J on December 21, 2005 1:16 AM
I can't even imagine what it would be like to be that dependent on mass transit, and to be in that kind of situation.
Brain matter deposited by: Ted on December 21, 2005 9:00 AM
Ted - it ain't fun @ 20 degrees with a windchill factor in the teens.
Ken - yes they did. The evil empire of the MTA/TWU is out to get you... and 7 million other folks :-)
Brain matter deposited by: Cindy on December 21, 2005 10:10 AM
That is inconceivable in France.
To ban strikes in the public transport sector would be a national outrage. I'm only half joking.
They particularly enjoy having Paris Métro strikes in winter. There's not much point in summer because people don't mind walking then.
The longest winter one we had lasted for about a month a year ago. It took me an hour to walk to work and an hour back, until I found a few short cuts.
The funny thing was the way Parisians actually started being nice to each other for the duration of the strike.
Once it was over, it was only a couple of days before the frosty glares and all that started again.
The current mayor of Paris plans to turn it green and get rid of as many cars as he can, so I hope he'll be allowed to stay in the job long enough to do that.
And the public transport will get even better; despite my opening remarks, it's great at it is and strikes are infrequent. That long one was a bit special. What quite often start strikes -- apart from money and hours -- is when train drivers or bus drivers have had enough of being thumped or worse by street kids.
I'm talking about a completely different public mentality, I suppose, that what I've seen in other parts of the world.
I don't think you can say one is "right" and the other "wrong". Europeans can't understand why Americans need cars to do everything (and that's a generalisation in the first place).
But then a lot of them also don't seem to realise that public transport in the United States is nothing like what it is in much of Europe.
Brain matter deposited by: taliesin on December 22, 2005 10:18 AM