[lbo-talk] Pensions and the Transit Strike

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Fri Dec 23 11:23:13 PST 2005



> Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> >You could have helped build support for transit workers by talking
> >about the issue of attacks on pensions in both the private and
> >public sectors via your radio show and the LBO. It's still not too
> >late -- more of such conflicts will come.
>
> I wrote my first piece on the worldwide attack on pensions in 1994.
> I wrote about it in Wall Street and After the New Economy. It ain't
> my fault.
>
> Doug

Just as Local 100 can't singlehandedly change the political climate, you can't do it either, but we can all do our shares and harp on this relentlessly, as a lot of people did earlier this year with regard to Social Security.

Here's one from our own Michael Perelman! "The Social Meaning of Pensions": <http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/perelman231205.html>. [This essay is adapted from Manufacturing Consent. Give yourself a gift -- buy a copy! -- in the spirit of the upcoming pagan holiday -- send what's left after caroling and carousing to Monthly Review: <http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/donate.html>!]


> Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> >I suppose that Local 100 could have done more agitprop, but,
> >realistically, what broadcast avenues were open to them except maybe
> >WBAI, NYCIndyMedia, and the like?
>
> Buying ads. Leafletting at subway stations & bus stops. Talking to
> what the MTA calls "customers" one-on-one. It would have all cost a
> lot less than the fines they're going to have to pay.
>
> Doug

I would have been in favor of ads in NY papers and leafletting at subway stations and bus stops, but I really doubt that such things would have prevented the fines. Recall the alacrity with which the city sought a preliminary injunction before the breakdown of the negotiation and had the fines levied as soon as the strike began -- they all had it planned, and the last-minute pension ambush was part of the game. The only way the union could avoid the fines was not to strike (or have all NYC unions go on strike and rally the public against the Taylor law and for the right to strike, which was not in the cards at this moment -- other union leaders were actually pressuring Roger Toussaint to get transit workers back to work). The fines are also useful now that the workers are back to work. It's part of the city's bargaining tip.

That said, I just read that "Their [the mediators'] proposal -- having the union agree to return to work with the transportation authority essentially acknowledging that pensions were all but off the table -- ultimately allowed each side to swallow something" (Sewell Chan and Steven Greenhouse, "From Back-Channel Contacts, Blueprint for a Deal, <http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/23/ nyregion/nyregionspecial3/23how.html>). If that (pensions being "all but off the table") is true and the union can avoid a two-tier system and minimize health care concessions they will give in return for pension protection, the strike would have been well worth it, even if not all of the fines got abated.

Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>



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