BUSted

Peter Kalikow did a terrible thing by accepting delivery of that Lamborghini in public and in the newspapers on the day that Roger Toussaint went to jail.

Toussaint is a perfect Bozo, with the way he has totally botched up the labor negotiations, and he is ruined as a labor leader. His ten-day jail term is just the beginning of his problems, which will really become apparent as the civil suit by the family of the firefighter who was grievously injured during the transit strike, Matthew Long, progresses.

As I have insistently and repeatedly emphasized in this blog, Long’s father, bar owner Michael Long, is the chairman of the New York Conservative Party, and this is an election year. The support of both the mayor and the governor for Long and against the union leadership in this lawsuit is already taking shape. There is going to be a full-court press on this from the entire establishment, and Toussaint is going to get, tar-and-feathered, flattened like a piece of Iraqi road kill.


But that’s no reason for jamming your thumb in his eye the way Kalikow has done. By making a fool out Toussaint, he is also insulting the rank and file for no reason. The name of the game in labor relations is conciliation, not confrontation. I have been in labor negotiations where there were screaming, insults and threats and I have been in sessions where there was conciliation and reasoning, and all the positive results were achieved in an atmosphere of harmony.


Kalikow already has a chauffeured limo courtesy of the MTA. He says that he could afford the Lamborghini independently of the MTA because he is supposedly independently wealthy, but knowing all the bullshit people talk, how are we supposed to believe that?


The way the workers are being jerked around, first by their own union’s stupidity, and then by managers like Kalikow, is only going to lead to explosive trouble. If the law forbids the union from striking, then it is supposed to forbid the management from behaving like pigs. The MTA is a public utility and to make it operate efficiently the management and union are going to have to adjust to a sophisticated new reality that takes the interests of the public into consideration, and that means not fighting like cats and dogs. But given the personalities involved, that’s not going to happen.


I can tell you this, every single transit worker saw that Lamborghini in the paper and said to him/herself, “That’s my money.” That’s normal.


But what’s not going to be normal is when the Long lawsuit gets going and holy hell is raining down on the transit union and the workers every single day. Plus the fact that when their contract goes to arbitration the workers are going to lose major concessions that were in the contract that they refused by seven votes.


When this whole mess comes to a head, which it will sooner than later, I’m going to start walking to work.

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Posted on 4/26/2006 ( Permanent Link )
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