I hope they take a hard line, the mayor, governor and TWU. Making no concessions. It is time for the municipal unions to face reality and stop being allowed to bleed the city and it's citizens.
Unions are dead in the USA. Currently the Unions' share of the private workforce is only 7.9%. In a capitalistic society, profit is the bottom line and those companies that cannot cut their costs either outsource or, what is worst for the workers who are left, go belly up.
George Ob1's comment on Reagan's gutsy decision to fire the Air Traffic Controllers was one of the first messages given to essential service people by government---you can't strike because of your vital role in society and if you do you will be replaced.
Does anybody know what the "international" union was, they disagreed with the walkout of the New York "local"??
Louise
Louise_R_Heller wrote:Does anybody know what the "international" union was, they disagreed with the walkout of the New York "local"??
The Transit Workers International Union did not approve of the NY City Transit Workers Local Union's strike. The local union is subserviant to the national or international union via its constitution and bylaws.
I suspect the reason the local union ended it's strike is because the International union threatened to place the local union in trusteeship if it didn't. Trusteeship means the international union sends a trustee to take over the leadership of the local union and run it's affairs. The trusteeship remains in place until such time as the local union is obeying the dictates of the international union.
The reason the international union would do this probably is because it felt the judge-assessed fines would bankrupt the local union and might even accrue to the international union's assets.
BBB
The strike was illegal from the first moment it was called. Unions enjoy Federal protection fron civil suits for the damages caused by such illegal actions (which in this case amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars.) It is a shame that unions don't have to face the same consequences for their harmful. llegal behavior as do corporations.
The City should decertify this union and stop the forcible collection of its dues from the captive employees.
Another element has been added. That being that some of the supporters of the unions actions are playing the race card. The contention that the mayor in calling the union thugs was racist because a good part of the membership are minorities. Had they been white the term would never been used?
The usual crock of s***t. They are nothing but a bunch of greedy thugs. White or minority.
During the Mike Quill days, they were mostly white thugs, I guess...
Hey, unions play hard ball in NYC, no? Why all the animosity after a two-day strike?
Re: Louise
BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:Louise_R_Heller wrote:Does anybody know what the "international" union was, they disagreed with the walkout of the New York "local"??
The Transit Workers International Union did not approve of the NY City Transit Workers Local Union's strike. The local union is subserviant to the national or international union via its constitution and bylaws.
...
"International" here just means that it's the 'head organsation' of the Amalgamated Transit Union, representing transit workers in the United States and Canada.
D'artagnan
Quote:Hey, unions play hard ball in NYC, no? Why all the animosity after a two-day strike?
Try walking miles to work in the freezing cold. Or watch as your business in the busiest time of the year goes down the drain Or lose several days pay because you could not get to work. All that because the union wanted to blackmail, as they have in the past, the people of the city into an unreasonable and undeserved contract.
And add the fact that the strike was an illegal action.
Unfortunately, no matter what disciplinary action the city and MTA can impose upon the union and it's members will be insufficient.
Georgeob
georgeob1 wrote:The strike was illegal from the first moment it was called. Unions enjoy Federal protection fron civil suits for the damages caused by such illegal actions (which in this case amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars.) It is a shame that unions don't have to face the same consequences for their harmful. llegal behavior as do corporations.
The City should decertify this union and stop the forcible collection of its dues from the captive employees.
[/b]
I'm surprised you erred on this one. The union members vote to decertify the union to which they belong. Kind of a divorce.
BBB
Re: Georgeob
BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:I'm surprised you erred on this one. The union members vote to decertify the union to which they belong. Kind of a divorce.
BBB
I understand your point. However this is a union of public employees and it is regullated by New York State law. Following an illegal strike knowingly threatened and carried out by the union local, the NLRA does not stand in the way of punitive action by the state.
Restaurant Sues for Losses During Strike
Quote:
Dec 22, 2005 2:37 pm US/Eastern
(1010 WINS) (NEW YORK) Owners of a theater district restaurant sued the Transport Workers Union, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the city Thursday in what was apparently the first lawsuit over financial losses due to the transit strike.
Owners of the Russian Samovar, partly owned by dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov until earlier this year, said the walkout and restrictions on vehicles entering Manhattan had caused the West 52nd Street restaurant to suffer a loss of customers and revenue.
The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan state Supreme Court, blames all sides of the labor dispute for the strike, saying the union struck illegally because the state's Taylor law bars walkouts by public employees, and because the same law forbids bargaining over public employees' retirement benefits.
The lawsuit says that when the parties to the negotiations reach a contract settlement, the businesses that lost money "have no place to go except to this court for relief from the outrageous, purposeful, illegal and intentionally harmful strike.''
Vlada Von Shats, the restaurant's manager and the daughter of its owners, said the strike caused the Russian Samovar to lose 60 to 80 percent of its daily revenue.
John Nicholas Iannuzzi, lawyer for the restaurant's owners, said they were asking $25,000 for each day of the strike. He said he is also asking for class-action status and $5 million a day total for all other businesses affected by the strike.
Iannuzzi said none of the defendants had been served with the lawsuit at the time it was filed. He said at least five other restaurants told him Thursday that they would join in similar legal action against the parties to the transit dispute.
Von Shats said the West 52nd Street eatery, which serves Russian and continental cuisine, opened in 1986 on the site of Jilly's, the restaurant-bar that was Frank Sinatra's old hangout. She said her parents, Roman and Larissa Kaplan, who immigrated to this country in the 1970s, own the restaurant. They bought out Baryshnikov earlier this year, she said.
If these lawsuits meet with success. I would expect to see a class action lawsuit to filed against the union. It would be well deserved.
I sense there will be no rest in some quarters until all unions are "decertified." Think of how peaceful labor-managment relations would be...
Kind of like it was in Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.
For the most part labor unions are an anachronism: the modern economy has movwed well past them, There is very little unionism in modern industry, and the few industries in which they are still significant (airlines, auto manufacturing, etc.) are generally very troubled - one wouldn't want to invest in them.
Unions of public employees raise far more unnecessary issues than they solve. This is evident in the case of the NYTA.
georgeob1 wrote:For the most part labor unions are an anachronism: the modern economy has movwed well past them, There is very little unionism in modern industry, and the few industries in which they are still significant (airlines, auto manufacturing, etc.) are generally very troubled - one wouldn't want to invest in them.
"...one wouldn't want to invest in them."
And that sums it up? What about the people who work in those industries? Or are the investors they only party that matters?
Having been on both sides of the fence I know that unions are a necessary evil. However, I also know from experience that unions are an impediment to initiative. Having see good workers turn into vegetables under pressure from union members. What is needed when union and management cannot come to an agreement is manditory arbitration.
I agree with you totally, au1929. I, too, have always considered unions a necessary evil. It is unfortunate that management can hardly ever be expected to be sympathetic to the needs of their employees and to do the ethical thing. If this were not so, there would be no unions. The reverse side of the coin is that all too often the union becomes as predatory as the management it is fighting, viz. the Teamsters. (Disclaimer: at one time in my life I actually carried a Teamster's card, so I know whereof I speak.) There is a point at which a union can become self-serving and every bit as much of an enemy of the worker as the bosses are seen to be. The worker becomes merely a pawn in the chess game between Union and Management.
au1929 wrote:Having been on both sides of the fence I know that unions are a necessary evil. However, I also know from experience that unions are an impediment to initiative. Having see good workers turn into vegetables under pressure from union members. What is needed when union and management cannot come to an agreement is manditory arbitration.
And the necessity is not
always evil, either. Often grievances are legitimate (and accumulated over time) & can't be properly addressed via dialogue with bosses. Despite seeing some pretty crumby union leadership in my time (& some appalling employers as well), I'm very supportive of ordinary working people & their rights to decent conditions & pay. Up the workers!
D'artagnan wrote:
"...one wouldn't want to invest in them."
And that sums it up? What about the people who work in those industries? Or are the investors they only party that matters?
Employees and investors are both important. However in the industries in the grip of backward-looking unions all are at risk. If the lifeboat sinks, everyone gets wet.
It's Time for a Change at the AFL-CIO
In my younger days, I was one of a group of women unionists that took on the national union leadership, fighting them with the fact that they were killing the labor movement. We were successful in causing a number of changes, but not nearly enough to save the union movement. The leadership was so entrenched and so handicapped by old methods that it was amazing that we accomplished as much as we did. ---BBB
It's Time for a Change at the AFL-CIO
Andy Stern
05.31.2005
In the 20th century, America's best anti-poverty program was the labor movement. Back then, if you had a "union" job at GM on a construction site or driving a truck, you had a good job. A job that allowed you to raise a family, have health care, own a home, help send your kid to college, and retire with dignity.
Work paid -- it was the American Dream.
Today, forget it. You work and you are insecure or in debt. You work and you get little loyalty from your employer. In the 21st century, work is far less valued and rewarded.
Enter the labor movement to the rescue? Afraid not. With only 1 in 12 private sector workers in unions, unions lack the strength to change workers'lives. So job #1, you would figure, is to unite more workers into unions -- NOW!
At the 50th anniversary of the AFL-CIO the debate is in full swing. I say we need to change and build a new, growing, dynamic, modern labor movement for the 21st century. The current President, John Sweeney, says go slow -- it is unrealistic to expect us to change, and after all we cannot grow until we change public policy and labor laws.
Sorry, but workers can't wait that long. And with both parties tone deaf to people who work, it seems we need to find for ourselves new ideas, strategies, and vitality in this globalizing economy.
This July, unions in America will decide whether we change and maybe make a new history or stick to the status quo and become history.
I say change is long overdue!
