Free Republic

Washington -- Iranian authorities have arrested 14 members of a group representing thousands of Tehran bus drivers for engaging in "illegal activities." The group has been staging protests for months as part of efforts to form an independent union and have wages paid. Among those arrested today was group leader Mansour Osanlou and an associate, Mansour Hayat-Ghaybi. Maryam Hayat-Ghaybi told Radio Farda that government agents searched her house, seizing all documents related to her husband's union activities. "(The agents) only told me I should not be worried, he is safe," she said. "They told me they took my husband to...

NEW YORK (AP) Owners of a theater district restaurant sued the Transport Workers Union, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the city Thursday in what was apparently the first lawsuit over financial losses due to the transit strike.Owners of the Russian Samovar, partly owned by dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov until earlier this year, said the walkout and restrictions on vehicles entering Manhattan had caused the West 52nd Street restaurant to suffer a loss of customers and revenue.The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan state Supreme Court, blames all sides of the labor dispute for the strike, saying the union struck illegally because the state's...

Transit Strike: Alerts and Latest Details (New York- WABC, December 22, 2005) - Here are updates from the transit services that are running, quick, latest details on the strike and quotes from commuters. Court Fight Latest: The TWU executive board has voted to end the transit strike. Thirty six members voted to end the strike, five voted against ending the strike and two members abstained from the vote. Union board members who emerged from the organization's headquarters said workers will return to their job sites starting with the next shifts. The vote was overwhelmingly in favor of returning to work,...

NEW YORK - Striking bus and subway workers agreed Thursday to "take steps" to go back to work while their union and the transit authority resume negotiations, a mediator said. The deal with the Transit Workers Union could pave the way for a resumption in service by Friday, if the union's executive board gives the final OK. The strike, the system's first in 25 years, halted service for millions. "Both parties have a genuine desire to resolve their differences," said Richard Curreri, head of a three-member state mediation panel. "They have agreed to resume negotiations while the TWU takes steps...

WCBS 880's John Metaxas has just reported that TWU's executive committee has voted 38-5, with two abstentions, to resume subway and bus service as negotiations with the MTA continue. The trains and buses could be moving again within 12 to 18 hours. "Both parties have a genuine desire to resolve their differences,'' said Richard Curreri, head of a three-member state mediation panel had said earlier Thursday. "They have agreed to resume negotiations while the TWU takes steps to return its membership.'' A judge has already imposed a $1 million-per-day fine on the union for defying an order barring the strike...

Eyewitness News has learned that the TWU executive board has voted to end the transit strike. Thirty six members voted to end the strike, five voted against ending the strike and two members abstained from the vote. Here is the latest: the transit union has agreed to take steps to restore service to New York's buses and subways while both sides resume negotiations. At this point, there is no timetable for the restoration of service. State mediators devised a preliminary framework for a settlement of the MTA contract dispute. Mediators say the two sides have agreed to the deal, pending...

NEW YORK - Transit union leaders agreed Thursday to urge striking employees to return to work while talks aimed at seeking a permanent settlement of New York’s crippling mass transit walkout, a state mediator said. The recommendation must be approved by the union's executive board and its membership. If approved, it was not immediately clear how quickly the striking employees would return to work. "Both parties have a genuine desire to resolve their differences," said Richard Curreri, head of a three-member state mediation panel. "They have agreed to resume negotiations while the TWU takes steps to return its membership."

After meeting with both sides through the night, state mediators have devised a preliminary framework for a settlement of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority contract dispute that would allow strikers to return to work later today, according to four people close to the negotiations. The people emphasized that the details of a final settlement would take at least a day or two longer to be finalized, although buses and subways would be running before that. The agreement, they said, would give every side some of what it asked for. It would allow Gov. George E. Pataki to save face because the...

just saw a headline come across about a possible resolution-- cnbc reporting annoncement may come shortly...

December 22, 2005 -- WHILE countless ordinary New Yorkers were trudging home from work in the bitter cold Tuesday night due to the transit strike, Transport Workers Union boss Roger Toussaint and his chaos-causing labor cronies were living the high life at an upscale uptown eatery. Toussaint and his comrades were in a jubilant mood at chichi Harlem Grill, an elegant supper club on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard with gleaming candelabras, antique mirrors and live jazz. A spywitness tells PAGE SIX's Fernando Gil: "[Toussaint and his party] were there for at least 2 1/2 hours. People kept coming and...

THE 9/11 terror attacks couldn't kill his business. No, the villains threatening to rob Jay Park of his livelihood are far more treacherous, selfish and insane. "It's dead — dead!" Park moaned from behind the counter of the ordinarily bustling Here and Now deli in Greenwich Village. Just one shopper dawdled among the shelves, then left without buying anything. An array of fresh flowers wilted from lack of interest. "We can't last a month like this," Park, the manager said. "In two weeks, we're going to be out of business." All over the city, the horror stories were too painful...

Hey, what's the rush? Why display an ounce of concern when New Yorkers can't get to their jobs and back, the economy is hemorrhaging, taxpayers are getting slammed and 33,700 transit workers are being whacked with $14 million a day in fines and lost pay? Show the slightest inclination to settle the transit strike? Not if you are Roger Toussaint. If you're Roger Toussaint, you compare yourself to Rosa Parks, say you only want "respect," paint the Metropolitan Transportation Authority as out of touch with minorities and women, start to push inflammatory race and class buttons and claim that you...

December 22, 2005 -- A furious Brooklyn judge yesterday threatened to toss transit-union leaders in jail for ignoring his injunction against a walkout — calling it a "distinct possibility." In a stunning announcement on the second day of the transit strike, Supreme Court Justice Theodore Jones ordered Roger Toussaint, head of Transport Workers Union Local 100, and union bigs Ed Watt and Darlyne Wilson to be in his court at 11 a.m. today. The hearing could result in "one or more of these persons being sent to jail," the judge said. "That is a possibility and a distinct...

NEW YORK - Threatened with huge fines and possible jail time, the city's transit union suggested Wednesday that it would be willing to end a strike that has shut down bus and subway service for two days — if a plan to change workers' pensions were dropped. The union's suggestion came as millions of New Yorkers again trudged to and from work — some walking miles, others riding bicycles and in-line skates in the morning's 24-degree chill. The contract covering 33,000 New York transit workers expired last week, and the union called the strike Tuesday morning despite a state law...

Here Are The Results of SurveyUSA News Poll #7876Geography Surveyed: New York DMAData Collected: 12/21/2005 Release Date: 12/21/2005 8:40 PM ET Sponsoring News Organization: WABC-TV New York Half in NYC with Union, Half with Management: Two-thirds of New York City area residents say transit workers should not have gone on strike, according to a SurveyUSA poll of 800 metropolitan area adults conducted 12/21/05 exclusively for WABC-TV. But: when Tri-State adults are asked to choose sides in the debate, half say they are with the Union, half say they are with Management. By 5:4, New Yorkers approve of NYC Mayor Michael...

NEW YORK - The war of words over the transit strike took an ugly turn after Mayor Michael Bloomberg described union heads as "thuggish," a remark some said was racist in the context of a predominantly black union. During his first briefing on the strike Tuesday at City Hall, Bloomberg complained that union leaders had "thuggishly turned their backs on New York City and disgraced the noble concept of public service." A group of City Council members and black leaders said Wednesday that Bloomberg's comment was racist because it was directed at leaders of a union that is less than...

You could see it in their eyes, in the set of their jaws, in their E-mails and in their letters. New Yorkers - normally good-humored in a crisis - were mad this time. "As I'm walking, I hope they are walking [Transport Workers Union leader Roger] Toussaint to jail," said Peter Johnson, 56, a Columbia College administrator trekking to work along Broadway. "The people this will hurt the most are the working poor. They can't bear another burden, especially at this festive time of the year." There was little of the camaraderie and spirit that was so evident after the...

NEW YORK - The city and state stepped up their pressure on striking transit workers Wednesday in hopes of forcing them back to work, and a judge said sending union leaders to jail was a "distinct possibility." State Supreme Court Justice Theodore Jones, who is hearing several legal issues related to the strike, directed attorneys from the Transport Workers Union to bring president Roger Toussaint and other top officials before the court Thursday to answer to a criminal contempt charge. He said he may sentence the union leaders to jail for refusing to end the strike, calling such a scenario...

Michael A. Cardozo, New York City's corporation counsel, asked the judge to issue an order directing union members to return to work. If the order is granted, Cardozo said, the city could ask for $25,000-a-day fines per worker — a punishment that goes beyond the docked-pay penalty that workers already are experiencing for the illegal strike.

NEW YORK (AP) Members of the striking Transport Workers Union's face the loss of two days pay for every day they are on strike. Aside from the loss of pay, the strikers have lost the backing of their union, The International Transport Workers Union. The international union is urging strikers to go back to work. Bus driver Bill McRae who has worked in transit since 1985 says ``The union executives called for a strike, and we have to do what we have to do.'' Lawrence Reuter, President of the NYC Transit, told NY One News that about one thousand transit...