Very Pleasant Company!
A view of the strike from the PATH
train...
So, the transit strike is over, for now, but not
all the hurt feelings. Today, to get back home from Canal and Sixth Avenue, I
walked to West 9th Street and went down the tubular tunnel into the PATH
station. Halfway down, there was a line to get in. The PATH trains in Manhattan
are firetraps. There's only one way in and one way out, with very few
turnstiles, except at the main termini at World Trade Center and 33rd Street.
When we got down the stairs, they were
letting everyone in for free since most New Yorkers don't take the PATH train
and its system of either using exact change or buying a card can confound anyone
in a hurry. So, I made temporary friends with the woman in front of me on line.
She did most of the talking.
She was
mostly angry at the transit workers themselves. She ranted about how they are
mostly superfluoous and that just about all of them can be replaced by
computers. Even the conductors and engineers, apparently. She wants fewer
transit workers and more cops on trains. Not that a cop should be spending time
telling us to "watch the closing
doors."
She then went on to villify all
transit workers are uneducated, and her attitude about this was pure venom, as
if being uneducated is a genetic character flaw. Frankly, did she expect
well-educated people to do some of the most mind-numbing and downright dangerous
work available in NYC?
After ranting
about much of this, she went toward Penn Station and told me "You've been very
pleasant company."
Now, I didn't agree
with much of anything she had to say. I basically hate everyone involved. I hate
it that the MTA is run by the limosine-riding friends of the governor, who never
take mass transit themselves. I hate that our CITY'S transit system is run by
the STATE, leaving the Mayor basically unable to do much about the situation.
And the governor, Mr. Pataki, wanted a strike so he could be a tough guy, after
talks broke down, not before. And then there is Mr. Toussaint, the TWU
president, who also wanted to be a tough guy, since he was seen as "too soft"
last time there was a strike threat.
I
also hate the Working Families Party for calling the strike "an inconvenience."
It was not an "inconvenience." It literally sopped the heart of the city. The
blood banks are lower now due to the strike. People who need a daily cash payday
had to walk hours to get to work. One waiter spent hours getting from his Bronx
apartment to his Brooklyn job.
For
better or worse, our entire economy is based on Christmas and retailers are now
dependent on the days leading up to Christmas. Losing three days of business can
actually kill a mom-and-pop business at this time of year. How can the Working
Families Party trivialize this by calling it an
"inconvenience"?
So there you have it. I
hate EVERYONE involved in this. And the sad thing is, what the TWU wanted,
initially, is not really all that astounding. Why create two sets of employees,
some grandfathered into a retirement age of 55 while raising it to 65 for
others. Why have some pay one percent of their health care costs while others
won't? Late in the game, Toussaint complained about the culture of disrespect at
the MTA. I am sure it exists, but walking out for three days will not fix that.
It will only hurt them. Instead of striking, the TWU should be documenting
managerial abuses and making them very public. I don't doubt that working for
the MTA is horrible, because I have yet to meet more than a handful of nice
transit workers. Most bus drivers seem ready to bite your head off if you ask
them "local or limited?" and I absolutely hate the token clerks. Replacing them
with credit-card machines for my Metrocards has been wonderful. I had a friend
who completely avoided the token clerk at her home station. The stories are
endless. And of course, if the MTA treats the workers like crap, expect them to
treat eveyrone else like crap too.
Time
for some changes, yes, but not by striking.
Posted: Fri - December
23, 2005 at 02:13 AM