Posted on 12/21/2005 12:01:28 PM PST by areafiftyone
A Brooklyn judge has ordered TWU Local 100 President Roger Toussaint and two union officials to appear in court tomorrow and answer contempt-of-court charges that could result in jail time. The ruling comes as a mediator is holding separate meeting with the MTA and the TWU today.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg will hold a 2:30 p.m. news conference at City Hall to update the area on the situation. The Mayor slept at the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) in Brooklyn again Tuesday night and walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to work on Wednesday morning.
NYC commuter rail lines have activated their strike contingency services, including extra shuttles and temporary stations, including one at Yankee Stadium.
Both the Long Island Rail Road and NJ Transit have implemented new procedures to avoid Tuesday night's crush at Penn Station -- click on the audio links at right for full reports, or visit the LIRR and Metro-North strike pages.
There is also special service on Port Authortiy Trans-Hudson (PATH) system. In Westchester, commuters who need to form carpool groups should call MetroPool at 1-800-FIND-RIDE.
Michael A. Cardozo, New York City's corporation counsel, said the city will ask a judge to issue a temporary restraining order that asks union members to return to work. If the order is granted and the workers obey it, Cardozo said the city could then ask for the $25,000-a-day fines -- a punishment that goes beyond the docked-pay penalty that workers already are experiencing for the illegal strike
"We're doing everything possible to make the union obey the law,'' he said, adding that union members need to "realize the economic consequences of their actions.''
The two sides were scheduled to meet with a mediator again Wednesday.
Meanwhile, commuters piled into cabs and walked the streets in the blistering cold for a second straight day.
New Yorkers were out before sunrise, hoping to avoid the long lines and crushing crowds that formed at commuter rail stations during rush hour Tuesday. Outside Penn Station, several taxis had lined up by 7 a.m. to pick up passengers hoping to beat the rush. A trip across Manhattan took about 90 minutes.
"A nightmare, disorganized, especially going home,'' Aleksandra Radakovic said Wednesday morning in describing her commute.
The White House also spoke out on the strike Wednesday, saying federal mediators have offered to help end the dispute.
"It is unfortunate. We hope that the two sides can resolve their differences so that the people in New York can get to where they need to go,'' White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
The two sides were scheduled to meet with a mediator again Wednesday.
On Tuesday, a judge imposed a huge fine against the Transport Workers Union -- $1 million for each day of the strike; union lawyer Arthur Schwartz said the fine could deplete the union's treasury in the matter of days.
In addition, the Transport Workers Union's 33,000 members already face the loss of two days pay for every day they are on strike. That means a prolonged strike could quickly eat up any increased pay they would get with a new contract.
State Supreme Court Justice Theodore Jones has yet to rule on whether a second union, the Amalgamated Transit Union, will also be fined. The union has two chapters in New York that have joined the strike with the TWU.
Also undecided is whether the individual officers of the two unions, including TWU Local 100 head Roger Toussaint, will be fined for supporting the strike.
"This is a very, very sad day in the history of labor relations for New York City,'' the judge said in imposing the $1 million-a-day fine.
The union vowed to immediately appeal, calling his ruling excessive.
Some of the strikers got an early start Wednesday, donning union placards and returning to their picket lines. Bill McRae, a bus driver since 1985, said he thought negotiations should have continued _ but he still backed the walkout.
"The union executives called for a strike, and we have to do what we have to do,'' McRae said on Manhattan's West Side.
Transit officials said about 1,000 transit workers came to work Tuesday, and that they were put to work cleaning and doing paperwork.
As they did on the first day of the strike, throngs of pedestrians, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg, on Wednesday braced themselves against the 24-degree weather and crossed the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan. Volunteers awaited them, offering hot chocolate.
Bloomberg urged transit workers to end the strike.
"All the transit workers have to do is listen to their international (union) that's urged them to go back to work, listen to the judge who ordered them back to work, and look at their families and their own economic interests,'' he said. "They should go back to work. Nobody's above the law, and everyone should obey the law.''
The International TWU, the union's parent, had urged the local not to go on strike. Its president, Michael O'Brien, reiterated Tuesday that the striking workers were legally obligated to resume working. The only way to a contract, he said, is "not by strike but continued negotiation.''
Police say there have been no strike-related crimes, injuries or arrests with the exception of two minor incidents.
On Tuesday night, a cab driver was arrested on the Upper East Side for allegedly assaulting a woman in his cab after they got into an argument over the fare. She sustained minor injuries. And earlier Tuesday, a police officer was accidentally bumped by a flatbed truck at a checkpoint in Queens.
"The city is functioning, and functioning well considering the severe circumstances,'' Bloomberg said before ripping into the union.
The TWU "shamefully decided they don't care about the people they work for, and they have no respect for the law,'' the mayor said.
Isaac Flores, who works at a law firm in midtown, was part of a complicated, four-person car pool to get to work Wednesday morning. "They're too spoiled,'' Flores said of the transit workers. "They want to retire at age 55. They're making more money than a cop.''
Flores traveled in a car pool with Myra Sanoguet, who saw a group of pickets in upper Manhattan as their car drove past.
"We were thinking about running them over just now,'' Sanoguet said.
In its last offer before negotiations broke down, the MTA had proposed increasing employee contributions to the pension plan from 2 percent to 6 percent. Union officials said that such a change would be impossible for the union to accept.
"Were it not for the pension piece, we would not be out on strike,'' Toussaint said in an interview with NY1. "All it needs to do is take its pension proposal off the table.''
The union said the latest MTA offer included annual raises of 3 percent, 4 percent and 3.5 percent; the previous proposal included 3 percent raises each year.
The MTA asked the Public Employment Relations Board to formally declare an impasse, the first step toward forcing binding arbitration of the contract, said James Edgar, the board's executive director.
The strike was expected to cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars per day.
"Ironically, Its the REAL working class folks that have the long commute from the Bronx/Brooklyn that these union scum are screwing over the most."
Absolutely right. And don't forget what this strike is doing to small business owners, many of whom happen to be hardworking legal immigrants with extremely tenuous economic security.
If Reagan were Mayor, he would fire every last one of them immediately and prohibit any one of them from ever working for the city government again. Easy fix.
I'll wave to you as I go by! ;-)
Put him under a bus.
At their rally the other night outside Pataki's office, 3rd avenue was littered with their signs. Pigs just threw everything everywhere. Rudy would have charged the union with the OT fees for the Sanitation dept. Disgraceful what is happening here.
If I was home, Id let you in for a cup of coffee!
Why are they waiting until tomorrow? Why was this not done yesterday?
Exactly, another group liberals claim to concerned about. Bunch of hypocrites.
When the rats come out of the tunnels, dont feed them! lol They are going to be wondering why it's so quiet and no fresh food down there.
Thanks. Actually yesterday morning the Red Cross was there with Coffee and Hot Chocolate (which was really nice). But today they were only at the Brooklyn Bridge. I guess they figured Brooklyn was more important. ;-)
Actually they might like it. There is enough garbage on those tracks for them to last a year.
"....could result in jail time......we would hope so...in Gitmo to never be heard from again."
Amen...let's enforce provisions agains terrorism. You take an organization like the TWU...their people are very well paid and have greater benefits than those in the private sector, given a fair comparison as to skill and educational requirements. Essentail services strike and you have a major metroplex shut down. It was tough to get around on 9/11 (I was right there). The logistics here are somewhat comparable. The union needs to be punished, severely. I'm not complaining vis-a-vis my own planning, but most of us don't have the benefits that these people have. This union needs to be busted and put out of business and their so called leadership, jailed for a lengthy period of time. This could be argued as constituting terrorism. You do not cripple a major city like New York. These Moth..Fuc..s are criminals.
if a warrant for his arrest is issued - it will be enforced.
TWU Local 100 Headquarters
80 West End Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10023, 212-873-6000
:-) Lets call?
From what I've been reading about this Toussaint (sp?) clown, he may be banking on just that, having the NYPD slap the steel to him and haul him away on national TV. That makes him a media hero, rallies the union troops, maybe even gets the national unions and the Dim party to publicly support him and his strike.
Well, you're definitely a better judge of that than I am from down here in Florida. But I've seen a poll and some other stories posted here to the effect that a majority of NYers are siding with the union so far. Even if the polls are garbage (color me unsurprised if that's the case), chances are those and the NYT and network pro-union propaganda pieces are the only information that these goons are getting. These guys may well think they're winning the hearts and minds even while most people in NY would rather string them up from a convenient lamppost.
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