By Henry J. Stern
December 15, 2005
 
In times of crisis, people look at what their leader is doing.  Many New Yorkers remember the photographs of Mayor Koch standing at the Brooklyn Bridge during the 1980 transit strike and cheering the New Yorkers who had walked across the bridge to their jobs in Manhattan.  Now Mayor Bloomberg faces the same issue: how to demonstrate his support for the city's resistance to the strike.
 
In 2002, the last time there was a strike countdown, Mayor Mike bought a bike and announced that he intended to ride it  to work at City Hall.  The strike was averted by Governor Pataki's generosity to the Transit Workers Union, which was only dwarfed by his beneficence to the Hospital Workers Union led by Dennis Rivera..  In 2005, Mayor Bloomberg has a new contingency plan for the city.: Corporeally, he will sleep on a cot at the Office of Emergency Management  under a bridge in Brooklyn,  and walk across the great bridge Friday morning with thousands of New Yorkers.  Their numbers are likely to be diminished by the cold weather (the 1980 strike came in balmy April).  Actually, there is no need for the mayor to sleep on a cot.  He must have friends in Brooklyn Heights or Park Slope who would put him up for the night.  If not, there is always the new Brooklyn Marriott.  Or he could buy or rent a town house with a view of Manhattan for the duration of the strike.
 
To proceed from symbolism to substance, we believe that it is an outrage for one union of public employees to threaten to tie up the city and cause enormous economic loss to businesses and to working people who are no part of the dispute.  This is collateral damage in the extreme. Injury to others is one reason that laws have been passed to prohibit such strikes.  The Transport Workers Union acts in arrogant disregard of these laws, as a result of their prior experience with pusillanimous public officials who lack the cojones to enforce the law.
 
The State of New York, through one of its hundreds of nonprofit corporations, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, went to State Supreme Court in Brooklyn Tuesday and won a preliminary injunction against a strike.  The next day a union leader tore up a copy of the injunction in front of cameras at a rally of strike supporters. That public act indicates the TWU's attitude toward the courts.  But if elected officials and their appointees on the MTA board do not act firmly to seek implementation of court orders, the union's contempt for the law will turn out to have been justified.
 
How, then, should the wages of transit workers be determined?  Certainly not by an illegal strike.  On the other hand, the MTA is an interested party in the dispute and should not be able unilaterally to decide what its employees should be paid.  In these cases, one may resort to binding arbitration.  The State Legislature in 1967 created an agency, the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB), which has the authority, in case of an impasse between labor and management, to decide, through arbitration the salaries of police officers and firefighters, but no other city employees.
 
In the case of the current dispute, the MTA has offered to submit the dispute to binding arbitration, but the union refused.  Under current law, arbitration can only occur with mutual consent.
 
The city objected when Albany expanded the authority of PERB because the state removed the power to determine salaries of some city employees from the city and gave it to the state.  It was the city that would have to pay the employees, but it was a state agency that would decide how much they would be paid.  That does not look fair to us.  But since this country is called the United States of America, and cities are by law creatures of the state, the power of the PERB was protected.
 
One problem with arbitration is that it tends to result in decisions, especially in money matters, where the arbitrators split the difference between the parties.  If the MTA, for example, offers all it can afford, or the same increase that employees doing similar work in other agencies receive, and the union demands twice as much, the arbitrators' decision by Solomonic, split the difference in half, would result in an increase out of line with what others are receiving.
 
A suggestion by former Mayor Ed Koch could be helpful.  He thinks that a special kind of arbitration would work.  Under this plan, the union and the agency submit to arbitrators their last and best offer.  The arbitrator must choose one; he/she cannot split the difference.  This system induces both sides to be realistic in their final offers, the agency will be more generous (with public funds) and the union will be more moderate, so that their offer is more likely to be selected. The plan is sometimes called "Last Offer, Best Offer", or LOBO.  This method of distribution would have to be required by law, since the TWU is highly unlikely to agree to it voluntarily.  The union's power to disrupt the city and intimidate its politicians is greater than its power to persuade an impartial arbitrator of the merits of its case.  This is a case where the State of New York should use its plenary power.  It is desirable for the trains to run on time (a European dictator once boasted of his ability to accomplish that).  It is unacceptable for the trains not to run at all.  In this case, concerted refusal to work is a violation of state law.  Disruption of service should not be tolerated.  The crisis is a test of the strength of our political institutions, and we hope they are strong enough to protect the public.
 
Nothing in this column is meant to denigrate the men and women who work for the Transit Authority.  As on any job, some work harder than others, but by and large the work is defined externally (take a train or bus from A to B and back, repeat X times a day) and it is well done.  They are in no way at fault in trying to get all they can in wages and benefits; that is the American way.  Nor are they overpaid as much as some of the suits at the MTA, particularly those that lined their own pockets.  MTA workers are decent people, but when their personal economic interests conflict with the public interest, and they resort to illegal acts to compel the city to surrender, that is unacceptable behavior which should be resisted.
 
Two side notes:  1) Last night on NY 1, Jesse Jackson compared the labor-management dispute to the struggle by Rosa Parks to sit where she wished.  Apart from the fact that both cases involve buses, there is no comparability.  The racialization of economic disputes is a disservice to a just society.  2) Although both jobs are underground, subway employees are not working for a pittance in the diamond mines of South Africa.  3) The Sun points out that a starting subway-train operator is paid $52,644 a year.  Starting New York City police officers, including transit police officers, earn $25,100 a year.  To be fair, police salaries rise rapidly, but it still takes about five years for a police officer’s salary to reach the compensation level a subway operator receives his first day on the job.
 
Anyone who can suggest  another way or a better way to make final determinations of transit workers' wages, please let us know.  If you think of something, write something.  We will publish your ideas in our blog, and write about them ourselves if they appear practical.
 
We do not know what will happen tonight.  Instead of high noon, the deadline is midnight.  Unlike the train bringing Frank Miller, the deadline can be postponed for hours or days, but it is not likely that it will be ignored.
 
Strikes against all of us help to create a common bond among the inconvenienced public.  People remember how they got to work, who they met, how long the trip took, etc.  The vogue of wearing sneakers while walking to work and changing to more formal footwear at the office is said to have originated during in the 1980 transit strike, when many New Yorkers walked miles to their jobs.  And people know that a transit strike is a minor inconvenience compared with the London blitz or a terror attack.
 
If there is no strike, it will be because the MTA has submitted to the TWU's threats, and will pass the increase along to their captive audience, the riding public.  Unfortunately, the public is not at the bargaining table, and their representatives may be cowed by union power.  It is also in the interest of the many businesses who will suffer what we now call "collateral damage" as the result of a strike.  Taxes in New York are high enough without residents incurring special damages because public employees believe that they are above the law.
 
None of this is meant to suggest that the MTA is any bargain.  We have in many columns criticized their blunders and misjudgments.  If you like, you can google MTA on our website.  We hope the next governor, whoever he may be, will appoint new leadership to the MTA board, preferably people who know something about transit.
 
Like all of you, we await this evening's activity, which is likely to spill over to the wee hours, at least.  If there is a strike, we wish you the best in coping with it.  If there is an agreement, we will look closely at what it says, if its terms are revealed, and report to you when we find out what it is.  There is a possibility of reluctance to release the terms until the union members have a chance to vote on the contract, but it is so hard to keep secrets in today's leaking world.


 
Thanks to the 30 people who have so far sent us comments on Tuesday's article.   Your views are on our blog, signed only with your initials.   If you wish to be fully identified or totally anonymous, please let Corgi know.

Anyone who, after reading today's article, wishes to suggest a better way to make final determinations of transit workers' wages is invited to let us know.  If you think of something, write something.  We will publish your ideas in our blog, and write about them ourselves if they appear practical.

If you do not know how to send e-mail, call Corgi at 212-564-4441 and let him know, briefly, what is on your mind.  Our snail mail address is 520 Eighth Avenue, 22nd floor, New York, NY 10018.