November 28, 2005
UPDATE: Toussaint has in the eleventh hour come out to say that the union will allow an executive meeting to negotiate, Peter Calico trying to broker a deal. The charla is now about the surplus - as the world know, surpluses are fugitive. Finger pointing has begun; the Police Benevolent Association is now backing the TWU. Now, a big storm is headed our way, both in terms of weather and in terms of this arm wrestling match over the surplus.
The rumours around town regarding a possible strike (for December 15th) have set tongues wagging, yet there appears to be little said about the concrete reason for the MTA to strike. The function of the union is to provide a voice for laborers who risk exploitation at the hands of employers or uneccesary suffering due to the whims of the bottom line, and how accountants arrive at it. This "charla" seems more like publicity than bona fide grievance. Such situations only serve to further weaken the position of unions in this country, a position sullied by the same corruption and poor practices that unions are supposedly trying to guard against. If the MTA strikes they must offer meaningful reasons as to why and where the process of negotation fell short. Unions need to rethink their policies and practices and to behave in a way that benefits their members.
UPDATE: Now, as the deadline looms, we are finally hearing some of the real talk about the reaons for the strike. Safety on the L line is an issue (a 1 man-operated train on that line is dangerous); the other problems seems to be with internal procedures for disciplinary actions - but this is not enough to validate a strike; another issue is the pension - the union is way out of step here with all other unions, herein the US and across the globe - not even in France is the retirement age 50, nor is there 100% of benefits paid and continued after retirement. See more below.
HERE you can read comments from Beth Fertig and Transit Employees, then judge if you believe this strike is worth it to the people of NYC (from http://wnyc.org/news/articles/54819):
Transit Workers Speak out About Contract Issues
by Beth Fertig
NEW YORK, NY, December 08, 2005 — The Transport Workers Union has rejected the MTA's latest offer of a 2 year contract. And it's not ruling out a strike if a deal isn't reached by the December 15th deadline. There have only been 2 transit strikes in the past 40 years.
REPORTER: In 1966, Transport Workers Union president Mike Quill said he would rather go to jail than end the strike which lasted for 12 days.
QUILL: Just as we promised you, the judge can drop dead in his black robes. We will not call off the strike.
REPORTER: Emotions haven't reached that level yet. WNYC checked in with bus and subway workers. Here's what they said about the issues of 2005.
BRECHT: I’m Edwin Brecht. I’m a cleaner what I do is take care of the maintenance of the train, make sure no debris that can hurt anybody, keep the appearance of the train looking clean and safe. For me the only concern is the pay raise. My rent went up 40 dollars, my daughter’s school went up $30, my insurance car insurance went up, oh my God it seems like everything is going up but our raises is not going up.
REPORTER: Would you vote to authorize a strike?
BRECHT: I would. I would vote for the strike but I wouldn’t think it would be a great idea.
MAN: It’s a no win situation when you have a strike. You got the Taylor law, that takes 2 days for every day out. And transit’s not going to give us any money they don’t care about us.
MAN: I’m a conductor. I open doors, close doors, 21 years here. You know they try to get the trains to work with only the train operator. And that eliminates a lot of conductor work, jobs. That’s union breaking. And it’s not safe for the customers when you have a train operator doing all the work and nobody back there to watch out what’s going on.
WOMAN: I’m a car cleaner. Mainly I believe everyone is really looking for a lot of security as far as they health. You know, their health benefits and what’s going to happen to them once they retire, and what the benefit package is going to be there for them.
WOMAN: I'm a bus operator. I don't want to give my name! The most important issue would be the medical, as far as medical after you retire. Cause right now we don’t have it - you have to pay into it. You work here 25 years and they only give you one year after you retire.
MAN: My name is Juan Ortiz and I’m a bus operator. Under our last contract they gave us a thousand bonus at first and then 3, 3 for the next 2. So I’m hoping that they don’t go down that route again. If they’re going to do it at least give us 3 straight down the board I’ll be fine with that. They can give us I guess some decent increase at least. I’m pretty sure they can afford it.
WORKERS: 2005 - payback time. 2005 – payback time! 2005 payback time!
BELFIELD: The last contract they was like, OK if you all let it go this time when the coffers get a little bit in it, we’ll be willing to share. Now they got a little in the coffers they still don’t want to share.
WOMAN: We’re the front line for transit. We generated that money. Why is it we’re not getting a piece of it. The surplus that they have. The surplus.
BELFIELD: My name is Connie Belfield, I’m a station agent and I work at Prospect Park. When I originally came on the job a station agent’s duties were selling tokens, retrieving tokens, interacting with customers giving directions. Now a station agent’s job is making sure the system don’t get blown up cause you’ve got to look out for everything, they want to put us outside the booths which endangers my life. Also you want me to now start cleaning up the station, I wasn’t hired to be a cleaner.
REPORTER: Are you willing to strike? BELFIELD: Of course, why not? I’m used to being poor, so a little bit poor - me striking isn’t going to make my situation any worse.
Tags:
charla, mta, positioned sullied, strike
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Posted on 11/28/2005
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November 22, 2005
The recent unraveling of the Tom DeLay machine, so instrumental in placing GB II in office, has underscored two important facts. The first is that the two-party system will forever be subject to such events and that selling us morality has nothing to do with the implementation of that morality.
The two party system, which increasingly becomes a Coke v.Pepsi or Wal-Martv. K-Mart ad campaign, will always invite the kind of insider-trading and bait-n-switch tactics that we have seen full force since the demise of Clinton.
Classics:
Cheney and his drive for war leading us into Iraq. We now are all pondering just how much smoke-and-mirrors we actually were subjected to, and coming to the slow and painful realization that it is very easy to high-jack an entire party and assume a position of quasi-dictator.
DeLay and the Moving Money. Now that the whole issue of campaign contributions has come down to the semantics of hair splitting, the politicians have once again proven that they can always find a way to evade the laws, although they do berate their enemies (v. The Other Party) for doing the same.
Murtha. A decorated, hard-working and caring Vietnam Vet steps up to speak his mind, opening the floodgates of criticism. Please note that Cheney did not call him a traitor, for fear of the very distasteful backlash he would have suffered had he leveled such an assault on Murtha. Apparently, in Washington only Murtha can have an opposing opinion and still be a Good Citizen. The rest of us cannot; we’re just “irresponsible” if we speak out.
Cheney and his Jingoism. Cheney likes to throw around words and repeat them over and over again, hoping that the feeble minds of the American people will believe what he is saying. He has yet to prove that he has been right about anything except his hatred of anyone who challenges him or tells him that they know better.
This reminds me of Republican Rome: As the Senators bickered about this and that, Cesar rode into town with his army and declared himself Dictator. Oops! There went the end of the Senatorial glad-handing and favor-taking, but it did give rise to a lot of beheadings.
Things that sound familiar: Cicero, aka Chick Pea aka Grumpy Old Man aka Pain in the Ass, railed against the enemy, Carthage, beseeching the Roman Senate to invade and destroy Carthage (Cartago dilenda est, or, Blast Them Back to the Stone Age).
His argument was that the Carthaginians
A) Might be assembling an army that could have the potential to invade Rome
B) They Weren’t Roman
C) They Had Money.
Putting it all together, Cicero argued that these rich, non-Romans were capable of possibly building up an army that might be able to attack Rome, thus posing a potential future threat. He went to drive home that any threat to Roman security, whether immeidtate, possible, real or imagined, gave Rome the right to take offensive action against such a potential threat. And so they invaded and destroyed Carthage utterly.
Hmmmm, sound familiar? (It was just after that the Dictatorship and then Imperium became the Roman political system.)
Differences: While Cicero was a well educated, eloquent statesman capable of expressing admiration for the physical world, Cheney is a flatulent bag of hot air so seething with hatred that even when he tries to be nice he remains positively repulsive.
I just wish he would shut up and leave us alone.
Tags:
blunder boulevard, carthage, cesar, cheney, delay, fascism, flatulence, repulsive, rome
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Posted on 11/22/2005
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November 17, 2005
The current Amtrak debate, which essentially privatizes each stretch of track, depending on whether a state is blue or red or perhaps purple, underscores the pervasiveness of favors that has racked NJ and the the Nation's capital. The Bush Model & Motto for Federalism: Reward my friends, crush my enemeies, the People mean nothing - let the bad states die in their own stink.
The problem here is that of punishment for any kind of dissent, no matter how First Ammendment and decent that dissent might be. Bush publicly states that "disagreement is good", but the reality is that the Bush machine eviscerates (whether with good facts or not) any dissenting voice. Much energy, attention and money is aimed at the total destruction of anyone who has the balls to stand up and defend a dissenting opinion.
This is certainly something that Pataki has been studying for his foray into national politics, and we can all be sure that he will use this machine to silence his NY-based opponents. We should all be prepared for that. In the meantime, private companies who contribute to right-wing PACs will be the ones to get whatever profits Amtrak might make, and the states will have to carry the debt. It's the classic set up that states are now feeling with Medicaid and Medicare. Witness the Katrina fiasco and the recent scandal regarding the privatised pieces of the farmers insurance business.
Woodward, in an inglorious apology that no one from the Watergate era could have imagined, ate his own words, and what words they were. Must have tasted good. The word play and the lies passed around and around and around are really mind-boggling. Again, the evisceration of Pflame and her husband was indeed a strategy designed to silence anyone who messed with Cheney's long-time plan to take back oil reserves nationalized after much western investment. He must have been so happy to have insinuated himself into the whole Iraq invasion scheme, and to hand out contracts like candy to all of his supporters.
What this means to us is either more taxes or inflation. The right doesn't want higher taxes because Haliburton and friends won't make money off taxes. Inflation on the other hand will.
Tags:
amtrak, inflation, pataki, pork belly futures, woodward
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Posted on 11/17/2005
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November 09, 2005
Congratulations to all who voted and please continue to do so. Complaceny leads to terrible, terrible things. You may not think so, but just look at the things that can happen when no one goes to the polls. The scariest thing for those who wish to consolidate power into the hands of the very few is large voting populace.
Tags:
voting
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Posted on 11/9/2005
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November 05, 2005
The recent release of Jimmy Carter’s book, Our Endangered Values : America's Moral Crisis, has caused a firestorm of debate among those who identify themselves as Christians. For most of those pundits who have posted blogs or reviews without having read the book, shame on you.
Mr. Carter has granted many interviews, to Larry King and National Public Radio to name a few, and has made it clear that his reasons for writing the book were tied to concern not only for the blurring of the line between church and state but also for the changing superstructure of religious organizations.
Here in New York, where religious and cultural pluralism is more pronounced than in any other part of the country, we tend not to pay much attention to such debates, as we feel impervious to the kind of overlordship that Carter hints at, vis-à-vis religious fundamentalism taking over the main organs of government. Religious fundamentalism is someone’s problem.
How does this affect us? What are the issues involved?
First, there is the notion that social responsibility should be in the hands of religious organizations – this is a clear and in-play part of Bush’s agenda. Think about this:
In New York (and also in New Jersey), disability insurance, paid for by employers, is mandated by law. The policies are purchased through private insurers. Employees who are disabled – on or off the job – receive compensatory pay during their recovery periods. For example, a woman who takes leave to have a baby will receive some pay to help her maintain her home and feed her family while she is out of work. Imagine a New York where such a disability benefit were controlled by a religious organization that is neither accountable for discriminatory practices nor taxed. Every citizen would have to become part of a religious organization – and these organizations can refuse membership or expel members at will – in order to receive benefits. This is no difference than preferential treatment for party members in the Communist systems that Americans have always decried. Forcing religious beliefs upon the populace is a step back to the dark ages. To criticize social programs as being left-wing humanism (and therefore anti-Christian) is to follow a circular logic so flawed at its base that all debate is eliminated.
Religious fundamentalism is fascism carrying a holy scepter. We disdain it when we see it abroad, and yet it is seeping into our lives every day. The more we ignore the political debates within the this city and state, the more we allow our rights, and the separation of church and state to be eroded.
Carter’s book and his willingness to talk about it, despite some of the angry and almost threatening chatter it has provoked, is a harbinger of struggles to come.
Tags:
bush agenda, fascism, jimmy carter, religious fundamentalism
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Posted on 11/5/2005
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November 03, 2005
As we sail silently towards the upcoming election, we must all remember to vote. Despite the lack of discussion, the lack of interest and the lack of anything to get excited about, we should all vote. (There are also ballot measures on the docket this year, not just the mayor!)
When we vote, we keep the public officials on notice. When we don't vote, they get the idea that we're not listening and that they can do whatever they want - without accountability. There has been enough of that lately - no more secrets & lies, just good, hard politics.
Voting is a right, so make a rite of it: chant, wear your favorite color, plant a tree, whatever is important to you.
So get out there and vote!
(Non participation in the process wil put you on the path to totalitarianism.)
This ad was not paid for my Mike Bloomberg for Mayor
Tags:
bloomberg, rites, totalitarianism, vote, voting, voting rights
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Posted on 11/3/2005
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