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.
Send him to the gas chamber. :D
He'll never show - he'll go on TV and dare Bloomberg to send the cops over to arrest him for contempt. The printing shops have just kicked into overdrive to run out pro-union placards for the thugs to wave around all over the city.
And a mighty cheer went up as the jail door clanged shut.
Throw this windbag and his comrades in gitmo.
"NY City held hostage by thugs at union" should be the headline for every paper in the country.
Better yet, let us NY Freepers chip in and buy him a one way ticket to North Korea.
I think tossing this thug into jail will put an end to the strike when he "looks out for #1" like they all ultimately do. Otherwise, Christmas in Jail sounds WONDERFUL for this TERRORIST.
Gitmo? Toss him to the freezing commuters walking to work.
I dunno. People here are pretty pissed off.
I've been walking over the Queensboro Bridge and it is packed with people walking. Now I do this everyday for exercise and it takes me about 1 1/2 hours in the cold each way but these people are not used to it like I am and its very tough on alot of them. The wind can be unbearable across the East River and their are very long hills on both sides of the bridge.
They need to fire all of them and outlaw the union.
"He'll never show - he'll go on TV and dare Bloomberg to send the cops over to arrest him for contempt."
OK, but as long as it's a dynamic entry...
...and then someone yells "GUN!" and sets off a string of firecrackers in a trashcan. :)
Imagine a terror attack that was planned for the same day, to shut down the buses and subways to snarl up commerce in NYC for Christmas. Someone tell me the difference between that and what these Democrats have done to the city?
Terror is terror.
PATCO HIM!...........
I wonder what all those people on that bridge would do with him if they found him amongst their presence?...............
Thats right by my apartment. I have it pretty easy going to Penn Station. A lot of my friends are carpooling or their business has car services.
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.
We'll see who has the bigger set.
FIRE them all.
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