Notes on Transit
By Henry J. Stern
December 13, 2002
A great deal has appeared in the media with regard to the threatened transit strike. Here are just a few notes on this and other subjects. Attention has focused on New York State's Taylor law, which was adopted by the legislature and signed by Governor Rockefeller in 1967.
If you want to read it, just click the Taylor Law and it will appear before you. It is on the PERB (Public Employment Relations Board) website.
The law was named for Professor George W. Taylor of the University of Pennsylvania. He was chairman of a committee that proposed it in the aftermath of the 1966 subway strike. In addition to banning strikes, it provides for mediation and arbitration of labor disputes in the public sector.
It is unusual for laws to be named for professors. Most are named for their sponsors, Taft-Hartley, the Wagner act, Fulbright, Roth and Coverdell IRAs, recently McCain-Feingold. In New York State, the Wicks law.
Recently, laws have been named for crime victims: the Brady law (gun control), Megan's law (community notification of sex offenders), Kendra's law (aftercare treatment for mental patients). If you want to know of other laws named this way, click Victims. The internet is truly a gateway to knowledge.
Mayors have used different symbols to deal with threatened transit strikes. Mayor Koch stood at the Brooklyn Bridge, and Mayor Bloomberg bought a bicycle.
We all hope there will be no strike. If there is, the city will show its resilience. We are concerned that, in its eagerness to avoid a strike, the MTA will make an offer impossible to duplicate for other city agencies, and justify it by imaginary givebacks
Last point: in 1980, the contract expired on March 31, when the weather was warming. How could the MTA have let the date be dragged back to December 15, which is even less convenient than December 31 for the public and for businesses? In this agency, the union may be smarter than the management.
Henry J. Stern is the director of NYCivic.