This is a good article on the issues surrounding the transit strike.

I apreciate everyone's comments. It's a strong indicator as to how far right-wing/free-market ideology has permiated our culture that people assume the transit union is being somehow unreasonable by refusing to make concessions on health care and pensions. Let's be clear. That's what's being proposed: work seven more years before you can get a pension, accept teired-benefits which will drive management to increase turnover, and pay more money in for healthcare. In return you get a 3% raise for three years. This is ridiculous.

These jobs are break-even positions if you're trying to raise a family. $55k a year isn't a lot after taxes and two kids, especially in New York City. I can't ask someone in that position to swallow a cut in benefits and pensions. And why should they? I find it hard to believe the MTA can't afford to continue to pay their workers well and maintain benefits. They currently have a one-billion dollar surplus. They claim this is from selling assets, but the MTA's word on it's finances is known to be suspect. Do you think the $1B just might have something to do with the fare hike that raised their income by 33%? Oh just maybe.

Now, the reason people think these TU jobs are so damn "great" (as in, "why don't you shut up and take a cut and get your job automated out of existence in 5 years... you've got it pretty good right now and you should be thankful for that") is becuase unions and workers have been systematically broken down and disempowered over the past 40 years. Transit Union work looks good by comparison only because the state of employment for most Americans is steadily getting worse.

There's a vast and growing income differential in America, and it didn't happen by accident. The middle class is being eroded with maybe 10% of those people "winning" and moving up to McMansions at the expense of the other 90%. The reality is most Americans work too hard for too little compensation, and there's no good reason why executives should, on average, recieve 475x as much money as workers. That's a real statistic. In the heyday of the middle class in America that ratio was around 20x, partly because there were fewer "rockstar CEOs" with truly outlandish compensation, but mosly because so most workers who made it beyond an entry-level position earned a decent family-supporting wage.

Also, the Taylor act gives provisions for workers to be fined two-days pay for each day not worked. The MTA took the initiative to get a court-order to bump those fines up to bankrupcy-inducing levels. I think if you're happy about the idea of a working family going into financial ruin just because you had to walk to work you should check yrself.