By Henry J. Stern
December 13, 2005
 
Once again New York City is facing the threat of a transit strike.  Despite the fact that the Taylor Law prohibits strikes by public employees and imposes substantial fines on unions who strike and employees who stay out of work, the Transit Workers Union is confident of its ability to create sufficient disruption in the city so that Governor Pataki, who appoints most of the members of the MTA, will cave and settle the dispute on terms agreeable to the union.  
 
The last transit strike was a quarter-century ago, in April 1980.  The walkout began on April 1, and the dispute was settled April 11.  At that time, Taylor Law penalties were imposed, with union members losing two days pay for every day they struck, and the TWU being fined one million dollars and losing its check-off privileges (deduction of union dues from an employee's paycheck) for several years.  Dennis Duggan has written a lively remembrance of the 1980 strike, which appears on pages A6 and A7 in today's Newsday.  You would enjoy reading it, whether or not you are old enough to have used public transit at that exciting period.
 
The classic image from the 1980 strike is the photograph of Mayor Koch, at the Manhattan end of the Brooklyn Bridge, greeting the thousands of people who walked across the bridge on the way to work.  He exhorted them to continue their resistance to the strike, and said, "We will not let these bastards violate the law and bring the city to its knees."  Later, when the strike was settled, the mayor said, "We won this strike in the streets, and the MTA lost it at the bargaining table."  At the time, the MTA was headed by Richard Ravitch, but major financial decisions were made by Governor Hugh Carey, who appointed the great majority of MTA board members.   Mayor Koch's representatives, including the late Bobby Wagner, voted against the settlement..
 
What terms are reasonable in a labor dispute is sometimes a difficult issue to decide. In today's Times, Nicole Gelinas writes an op-ed, Off the Rails, to make the point that "New York's transit workers have it too good to strike.”  That is likely to be true, but that does not mean that employees will not act foolishly, or in ways that will injure their own interests, because they are unaware how fortunate they are, or are whipped up to a delusional state of grievance.  That is how ruinous wars begin.
 
Municipal labor relations are usually based on pattern bargaining, which means that unions of employees in different agencies get roughly similar increases.  In some high-profile departments, or in areas of labor shortage, the pattern may not be followed.  There may be political needs or pressures, as in the case of police officers and teachers.  Salaries for both cops and teachers are higher in suburban counties, particularly Nassau, than in New York City; but their workforce is smaller and Nassau, for example, was deeply in debt and close to bankruptcy when Tom Suozzi was elected County Executive in 2001.
 
Another transit strike would bring about great economic loss to businesses and individuals who are not parties to the dispute.  An illegal walkout would clearly be against the public interest, which is why the Taylor Law was adopted. Nonetheless, if a union and its members are willing to pay the penalties, they can decide to strike.  And it is unfair by today's standards to leave the compensation of employees, forbidden by law to strike, entirely up to their employer, which is a non-profit public authority with serious financial problems.  That is why the mandatory arbitration, currently required by New York State law for police officers and fire fighters, could be applied to transit workers.  Their services are certainly essential.  The problem is that if all wages are fixed by arbitrators, elected officials will lose the power to determine budgets, and responsibility will be fragmented even further than it is today, with our own activist judiciary more than happy to function as city commissioners by their own order.
 
One area that should obviously be explored in negotiations is productivity savings, which are referred to disparagingly by unions as "givebacks".  These savings, if they do not detract from service or safety, are a way to give employees a larger raise without imposing commensurate costs on the MTA.  They are very unpopular with union members who feel imposed upon, and take out their anger at union leaders at the next election.  The nature of union politics is that militant leaders who accuse their predecessors of selling out the members get elected.  When it comes time to negotiate an agreement, whatever is agreed to is regarded as inadequate, and the union leaders are excoriated by their internal rivals for the settlement.  That is why arbitration is sometimes chosen by unions, even if the end result is less favorable than management's last offer.  If the arbitrators make the decision, the union officers feel they are less likely to be blamed for it.
 
We do not know on Tuesday what will happen Thursday.  The contract expires at 12.01 a.m. Friday, and we predict (on the basis of precedent) that "the clock will be stopped" Thursday night so the negotiators can work all night on a settlement.  If an agreement were reached any earlier, that would be taken as solid evidence that the workers had been betrayed.  But if no agreement is reached that night, the union will have to decide whether to adhere to its "No contract, no work" policy, which has a familiar ring but is completely illegal.
 
Our guess on the mood of the city and the courts is that enforcement pressures are greater than they were four years ago.  But the union has the capacity to sabotage the Christmas shopping season, and that is why they got the contract to expire on December 15, instead of April 1, which is much more favorable weather for walking to work.  Richard Ravitch said the 1980 contract was for exactly two years.  If that is so, the MTA must have been pretty dumb to get maneuvered by the union into having the expiration date of the contract come in the midst of the holiday season.  How did you blow that one, MTA?  Did it not occur to you that a December 15 expiry was not in your interest?
 
The best-known transit strike, led by the late Michael J. Quill, took place in January 1966, lasted twelve days, was a success for the Union, and set the pattern of intimidation which characterized the Lindsay mayoralty.  The current dispute will to some extent test Mayor Bloomberg; what he says and does will symbolize the city's attitude.  Already he is sounding stronger (no more luxury bicycles) he will sleep on a cot downtown.  He is aware of the impact a high settlement would have on the city's own labor negotiations and employee morale.

Ultimately, however, it is the governor who will decide how much money to give the MTA, and what expenses to skimp on if the surplus goes for pay increases to employees who, in general, make well over $50,000 a year, plus the finest in fringes and pensions.  Is that income a lot or a little?  It depends on one's perspective.  To many New Yorkers who have jobs with similar skill sets, the salaries and benefits are pretty rich.  Transit workers raising children and paying mortgages may have a different perspective.
 
In 1980, Mayor Koch was also deeply concerned that the transit settlement, whatever it was, would set a pattern for other unions.  At that time, the city was emerging from insolvency, but had still not reached its goal of a balanced budget with adequate reserves.  The governor was more concerned with the political and economic consequences of a prolonged strike, and pressured his appointees to settle.  On the other side, John Lawe, at the time president of the TWU, had a hundred-member negotiating committee, half of whom were quite militant.  He had a real problem in selling any agreement to this group, so there were pressures on the union as well as on management.
 
We will watch the events of the next few days carefully, and report to you if we learn anything not generally published..  The unfolding situation in a way resembles a sporting event; one cannot with certainty predict the outcome.  The TWU is the union that can hurt the city's economy and its people most by an illegal strike.  Police and fire are highly unlikely to strike; they are emergency service agencies and have a different culture.  Twenty-five years is a generation, and the great majority of transit workers today were not on the job in 1980.  It is possible, therefore, that the lessons of the previous strike will have to be relearned.
 
It is difficult to find sympathy for the bureaucratic, overstaffed MTA, with its record of bungling and being defrauded and outsmarted.  But inept as some of the pampered paper-pushers may be, the operating people run a decent transit system, and as frequent riders, we appreciate their work.  We extend our sympathy to the MTA in dealing with the TWU.  Our hope is that they not settle their differences at the expense of the public, too often the victims of these power plays.  To resist unaffordable demands will require a level of strength and purpose that the MTA board has yet to demonstrate.