Taylor Law?

I guess the Transportation Workers’ Union in NYC never heard of it.

The law (with which I became familiar last week) forbids public sector unions in NYS from striking, and in turn the government can’t hire non-union replacements – not even volunteers can take the place of what used to be union jobs.

The TWU is striking in NYC, and it’s going to be a sucky commute. There’s no word yet whether Metro North and LIRR will run a few days’ worth of a sympathy strike (that’s what they did in 1980). NYC will decidedly become a very unhospitable place with no train or bus service. I hope that the Taylor Law’s penalties for striking are rigorously enforced.

Draw your own conclusions.

UPDATE: The TWU Local 100 is running its own blog.

People have left comments here about living wage, and what choice did the unions have to pressure the MTA. I would counter that this is a prime example why we shouldn’t have public sector unions at all, but that any and all work for a government entity, which is by definition the people, should be at-will employment. You likes the job, you come. You don’t likes the job, you leave. But to protect the people who work for the people from those very same people is confusing and unnecessary.

This wasn’t done to punish the MTA. This was done to punish all New Yorkers, and is a prime example why the Taylor Law – imperfect as it is – exists. It’s the dead of winter. It’s the week before Christmas. No one’s paycheck has been withheld. Nothing is different yesterday than it was a month ago.

Authorities began locking turnstiles and shuttering subway entrances shortly after the Transport Workers Union ordered the strike, and the city began bracing for a rush hour filled with disorder. At one subway booth, a handwritten sign read, “Strike in Effect. Station Closed. Happy Holidays!!!!”

Nice, huh?

The union said the latest MTA offer included annual raises of 3 percent, 4 percent and 3.5 percent; the previous proposal included 3 percent raises each year. Pension issues were another major sticking point in the talks, particularly involving new employees.

But Toussaint said the union wanted a better offer from the MTA, especially when the agency has a $1 billion surplus this year.

Sounds to me like the $2.00 fare is due for a decrease.

Just for the record, “Train operators, station agents and cleaners earn between $47,000 and $55,000 a year before overtime.” That’s a lot of money for a job that anyone with a remedial education can perform. And with benefits, too. And predictably, a conductor spouts off about how no one has the right to critique the workers’ position because they can’t possibly know how difficult the job is.

If said job is so remarkably difficult and unrewarding, the good conductor should familiarize himself with the 13th Amendment to the constitution, which decidedly permits him to leave and find a new job.

Here are the key issues.

UPDATE 12/21: Workers of the World, UNITE!

Look at the oppressed proletariat suffering at the hands of the bourgeois owners of the means of production transportation. Retire at 62!? Only $68,000?! Evidently, service and affordability of NYC’s transit system is secondary or tertiary.

Since 1999, transit worker salaries have more than kept pace with inflation, rising to an average of $63,000 for train operators and $54,000 for conductors. The MTA proposal would have boosted those numbers to $68,000 and $59,000 while opening the door to substantially more. Toussaint responded by demanding raises totaling more than 25% and refusing what he called givebacks.

Even so, the strike is not ultimately about wages. It’s about the MTA’s health and pension costs. Because both are skyrocketing, the agency faces a deficit of almost $1 billion despite planned fare hikes. Riders and taxpayers are going to get hammered unless expenses are brought into line. And that’s just fine with Toussaint & Co.

Transit workers contribute 2% of pay to pensions and can retire after 25 years at age 55. The MTA proposed requiring new employees – and only new employees – to stay on the job until 62 and contribute 3% to their pensions. And the agency would have softened the impact by making 1% matching contributions to workers’ retirement savings. The MTA also called for new employees to contribute 1% to health coverage, a minuscule amount in this day and age.

And, since labor seems to dislike the Taylor Law, and management and other people dislike the Taylor Law, let’s scrap it and see what happens.