NYC Transit Workers Persevere in Strike

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RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

We turn now to New York in its third day of an illegal transit strike. The president of the Transportation Workers Union has been ordered to appear in court today and could be jailed for contempt. The union is being fined $1 million a day and each worker is being docked two days' pay for each day they strike. But as NPR's Nancy Solomon reports, workers on the picket line yesterday showed no doubts about the righteousness of their strike.

NANCY SOLOMON reporting:

Mayor Mike Bloomberg has called the striking transit workers thugs and refused to negotiate with the union until they return to work, but this did little to soften the resolve of workers who are standing up to both the city and their parent union, which has instructed the local to call off the strike.

Mr. MIKE GOODMAN(ph) (Striking Transit Worker): They seem to be on the side of the enemy.

SOLOMON: Mike Goodman is a 59-year-old electronics maintenance man for the Metropolitan Transit Authority.

Mr. GOODMAN: I thought this was America. You shouldn't be restricted to go on strike. Maybe the police, the fire department and the ambulance, but a bus driver, a train driver or something like that? I don't think so.

SOLOMON: Transportation Workers Union president Roger Toussaint says this showdown is about a lack of respect, first by management and then by Mayor Bloomberg.

Mr. ROGER TOUSSAINT (President, Transportation Workers Union): When you have transit workers stand up for their rights and for their dignity, then we are then called thugs, selfish, greedy, overpaid, by a billionaire.

SOLOMON: But this strike isn't just about respect. The MTA wants workers to contribute a larger share of their pensions and health insurance costs. Toussaint says he would end the strike and return to negotiations if the MTA would take the pension cuts off the table. Picketing workers on Wednesday showed no signs of retreat. Ethan Feingold(ph), a 59-year-old electronics repairman, says past contracts have not kept up with inflation and their working conditions are difficult.

Mr. ETHAN FEINGOLD (Striking Transit Worker): I don't know if Mr. Bloomberg was any time in a subway tunnel and saw how many homeless and rats, huge rats over there. And we have to go there to keep subway running.

SOLOMON: Labor negotiation experts say the heated language from the mayor and other public officials can't possibly help bring the two parties together. Harry Katz, dean of the Industrial and Labor Relations School at Cornell University, says public employees in New York have a history of militancy that has served the union movement well. He says the New York teachers' strike in 1960 came at a time when municipal employees were largely unorganized. It set the stage for unionization of public employees across the country.

Dean HARRY KATZ (Industrial and Labor Relations School, Cornell University): New York gets enormous attention. There's also a large membership here of unionized workers. It's a tough strike and I wouldn't be surprised if the repercussions go beyond New York City and even New York state.

SOLOMON: The picketing workers seem to understand their role as the avant garde of the public employees unions. They even rejected a proposal that would've saved their pension benefits and only lowered those of new workers hired after the contract is settled. They're holding the line for better pay and full pension and health insurance contributions. With seven million people depending on their labor every day, they believe they have the power to do it.

Nancy Solomon, NPR News, New York.

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