New York City Transit Workers Strike By DESMOND BUTLER, Associated Press Writer
Subways and buses ground to a halt Tuesday morning as transit workers walked off the job at the height of the holiday shopping and tourist season, threatening to plunge the city into chaos by forcing about 7 million daily riders to find new ways to get around.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the strike would cost the city as much as $400 million a day.
"I think they all should get fired," said Eddie Goncalves, a doorman trying to get home after his overnight shift. He said he expected to spend an extra $30 per day in cab and train fares.
Authorities began locking turnstiles and shuttering subway entrances shortly after the Transport Workers Union ordered the strike.
At one subway booth, a handwritten sign read, "Strike in Effect. Station Closed. Happy Holidays!!!!" At Penn Station, an announcement over the loudspeaker told people to "please exit the subway system."
Bloomberg has said the strike would be particularly harsh taking place during the holidays. He said a strike would freeze traffic into "gridlock that will tie the record for all gridlocks."
He began putting into effect a sweeping emergency plan to reduce gridlock and keep certain streets open for emergency vehicles. It included requiring cars coming into Manhattan below 96th Street to have at least four occupants.
New Yorkers were urged to make arrangements to car pool, bicycle and walk to work, or change their schedules and work from home.
The union called the strike after a late round of negotiations broke down Monday night. Union President Roger Toussaint said the union board voted overwhelmingly to call the strike.
"This is a fight over dignity and respect on the job, a concept that is very alien to the MTA," Toussaint said in announcing the strike. "Transit workers are tired of being underappreciated and disrespected."
The news drew an angry response from the mayor, governor and head of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow called the strike "a slap in the face" to all New Yorkers and said state lawyers will immediately head to court in seeking to block the walkout.
"This is not only an affront to the concept of public service, it is a cowardly attempt by Roger Toussaint and the TWU to bring the city to its knees to create leverage for their own bargaining position," said Bloomberg at a news conference.
Bloomberg headed to the Office of Emergency Management headquarters and planned to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge on Tuesday morning to City Hall.
The union and MTA had worked furiously to try to reach a new contract, hoping to avoid the city's first transit strike in more than 25 years. It is illegal for mass transit workers to strike in New York, which means the 33,000 bus and subway employees will incur huge fines — two days' pay for each day on strike.
"They have broken the trust of the people of New York," said Gov. George Pataki. "They have not only endangered our city and state's economy, but they are also recklessly endangering the health and safety of each and every New Yorker."
MTA spokesman Tom Kelly said the agency "put a fair offer" on the table before talks broke down. "Unfortunately, that offer has been rejected."
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. MTA workers earn between $47,000 and $55,000 annually.
Pension issues have been a major sticking point. The MTA wants to raise the age at which new employees become eligible for full pension from 55 to 62, which the union says is unfair.
But Toussaint said the union wanted a better offer from the MTA, especially when the agency has a $1 billion surplus this year.
"With a $1 billion surplus, this contract between the MTA and the Transport Workers Union should have been a no-brainer," Toussaint said. "Sadly, that has not been the case."
The down-to-the-wire negotiations came as workers at two private bus lines in Queens walked off the job, a move meant to step up pressure on the MTA.
The contract expired Friday at midnight, but the two sides agreed to keep talking through the weekend and the union set a new deadline for Tuesday.
Commuter frustration was evident both before the strike and after it was called.
Darryl Padilla, a 20-year-old club promoter, was trying to get on the train at Penn Station when he found out that the strike had begun. He didn't have enough cash to take a cab to his home on the northern tip of Manhattan.
"I didn't think they were going to shut down. I can't take a cab," he said.
"Enough is enough," said Craig DeRosa, who relies on the subway to get to work. "Their benefits are as rich as you see anywhere in this country and they are still complaining. I don't get it."
In Queens, Brunilda Ayala said she had no sympathy for the union after the bus strike began in her neighborhood.
"How can you give a raise to a bus driver who would make three old ladies walk home in the cold?" asked Ayala, 57.
The strike is New York's citywide mass transit walkout first since an 11-day strike in 1980.
___ Associated Press writers Samantha Gross and Sara Kugler contributed to this report.
It is unfair of the Union to hold the citizens of New York hostage. Is their beef with the citizens or the city? Are they the same? I am not totally against unions, I even belong to one, but this is looking like some euro socialist country. A heavy topic to handle at this time in the AM without my second cup of coffee.
It is unfair of the Union to hold the citizens of New York hostage. Is their beef with the citizens or the city? Are they the same? I am not totally against unions, I even belong to one, but this is looking like some euro socialist country. A heavy topic to handle at this time in the AM without my second cup of coffee.
And, in mid winter, a cruel way to ask for a raise - at the customers' expense, isn't it! With police stopping cars with fewer than four people, how can one get to a doctor? Almost as forbidding as the Taliban in Afghanistan a while back. Pretty bad, I agree.
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"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything." -- Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835-1910)
12-20-2005, 10:31
New York City Transit Workers Strike 
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