NYC subway workers have just gone on strike for the first time in 25 years and only the third time ever. Many, many desis were on both sides of these negotiations. 
Everyone has been glued to the TV sets at the gym for the last few days. Asking random strangers about strike status is as commonplace as asking for The Score when the Yankees are in the World Series.
Coming home from the city tonight, fellow passengers were sharing gossip about whether trains turned into pumpkins after the strike deadline at midnight. We buttonholed the conductors of passing trains. None of them knew any more than we did. Boarding the train, we knew that we could be kicked off at any stop and be forced to walk the rest of the way home. The atmosphere was a little bit like the East Coast blackout, but with less promise of impromptu rooftop parties followed by a baby boom.
Along with thousands of others, I’ll be walking across the Williamsburg Bridge today to get to my beloved gym and bookstore, suffering little inconvenience other than a warmly bundled, 40-minute walk in 23 degree weather.
Meanwhile, millions of workers will be showing up at friends’ houses at 6 am to share rides to work. Large swaths of the island are now off-limits to cars with less than four riders or an equivalent number of convincing mannequins. Those who toil at large companies will expense cab rides and hotel rooms; those who don’t will take over the couches of friends in the city. There will be a run on bicycles.
The greatest ill effects, of course, will be suffered by two very different groups: emergency victims stuck in life-threatening traffic jams, and transit workers themselves, who will be docked both pay and penalties for every day of the strike. It seems almost ungracious to mention that a subway strike the week before Christmas will slam retailers in what’s normally the most profitable week of the year.
Because few in NYC own cars, the strike is illegal under state law. The union is reportedly asking for 6% annual raises for the next three years and wants fewer disciplinary actions, while management is offering an average of 3.5% and asking for a reduction in pension costs. The gap appears too wide to be easily bridged. What’s odd about the impasse is that it comes on the heels of a fare hike and a surplus that had the transportation authority making rides free some weekends over the holidays.
The strike took place with Saddam-like bluster:
Roger Toussaint, union president: “… this is a fight over whether hard work will be rewarded with a decent retirement… We did not want a strike, but evidently the M.T.A., the governor and the mayor did…”Michael Bloomberg, mayor: “… it is a cowardly attempt by Roger Toussaint and the T.W.U. to bring the city to its knees to create leverage for its own bargaining positions.” [Link]
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p>A strike is an exception; a strike indicates a sickness, a severe system breakdown. Surely there’s a better way to make a deal than periodic, televised gladiatorial bouts between charismatic individuals. High-stakes, 3 am negotiations are drama fit for businesses and peace treaties, not basic affordances. All the posturing masks the fact that mass transit in New York is a critical system and must not be held hostage to bad leadership.
Thousands of desis dot the MTA, no pun intended. Although not as common as desi cab drivers, you sometimes hear the inimitable desi accent over the loudspeaker on a train. My own theory on this is that government work, steady jobs and Indian Railways jobs in particular were all highly prized when the post-’65 generation was growing up.
Of MTA’s 65,000 workers, a whopping 2,500 [~4%] are estimated to be of Indian origin, arguably the largest number in any single business enterprise on the East Coast. Some of them are completing over two decades of service… Indians are serving in signals, train operators, dispatchers and token agents. “Earlier there were no Indians at all, but now you’ll see the proportion is very high compared to the general population. it’s a very big change in the last 25 years,” says Thalappillil…
Indian American engineers especially were instrumental in revitalizing the deteriorating subway system… Nagaraja, as president of Capital Construction Company, is overseeing this multi-billion dollar effort… Mala is as an associate transit management analyst, who estimates that several hundred Indian American women work in the MTA… [Link]
Lots of these engineers are Malayalee:
Why are so many from Kerala? Well, Nair has a theory that since tests are an important part of the application and promotion process and as Kerala is the most literate state in India, Keralites seem to do very well in the MTA. Another contributing factor is that many immigrants from Kerala accompanied their wives, who were in the nursing profession and who came into the United States in the ’70s when there was a big demand for medical personnel. [Link]
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p>In her new novel The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai ponders the humor of a country being perpetually ahead of America by time zone but behind by most other gauges. What tickles my funny bone is that New York counts on desis to make the trains run on time.
Perhaps most ironic given who’s most likely to be profiled, bag-searched and shot mistakenly, capital spending on subway security is headed by brown men:
… Nagaraja leads the MTA’s multi-billion dollar capital system expansion projects, including… a new Second Avenue Subway… He also handles the MTA Security Program, which is a $600 million security improvement program… [program manager] Ashok Patel is managing the entire security program… [Link]
The guy managing the rebuilding of the World Trade Center transit hub after the towers came down is also desi:
Uday Durg, who is program manager for the Lower Manhattan project, is overseeing the Fulton Street transit center and the South Ferry tunnel rehab, a $750 million project that connects the World Trade Center to South Street Seaport. [Link]
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p>Others working closer to customers face the inevitable racial epithets:
[Raju] George… [has] been working as a token booth clerk since 1988… Sometimes he would encounter angry customers who would yell to him to go back to India or call him Gandhi. [Link]
The strike is reminiscent of the hartal at Heathrow (related: A sea of brown closes Heathrow down).
Update: See strike-related photos.
janeofalltrades Irrespective of the pathetic and useless MTA workers we are all unfortunately used to they are still trained people with experience.
What’s up with the Royal “We”? I’ve been using the NYC subway and buses for almost ten years and have NEVER dealt with an MTA employee that I’d describe as “pathetic” or “useless.” I think it’s hardly fair to dismiss them all as such.
Those people put up with a lot of crap in their day-to-day jobs and show a lot of patience in dealing with commuters (especially the obnoxious people that insist on holding the doors open while the conductor is trying to move the train). So while you’re sitting in your nice cushy office, try taking a moment to consider that 1) you wouldn’t last a day if you had to do their job (especially during rush hour), and 2) if they’re so pathetic and useless, how come you’re missing them now?
Vinod, you provide a lot of food for thought. But this really is a moot point since, again as bikepath said, rent control is being phased out. I can look up the numbers if you’d like but the number of extant apartments that are still under rent control drops every year.
I’m in favor of tightening rent control to limit inheritance and bringing rents up to keep the building turning a profit for the landlord. However, the problem with talking about market forces is that the term is used manipulatively, to cater to the wealthy.
As in, lets turn these warehouses into luxury condos starting at $10,000 a month because there are enough rich people in NY who’d like that. I’m not saying that’s wrong, but “market forces” conviently ignores the low-income demographics all who’d love to pay equitable, resonable, profit-making prices small apartment with basic, non-fancy fixtures.
“Mixed Residential” housing is becoming a thing of the past, and that’s a huge problem. There IS housing…People are building all over the place. It’s jsut that the new housing is designed (and priced) for higher income demographics. And the problem with that is there are only so many uber-rich folk to go around.
After the real estate boom that accompanied the tech boom, developers started building to capitalize on the insane rents. A few years later, these huge lavish places stood empty for months and months and required serious advertising to fill because all that paper money kinda disappeared.
Greed leads to stupid decisions too. Self-interest isn’t always what’s best for the market.
runs away before Adam Smith groupies show up to start the bitchslapathon
That’s the first — and hopefully not the last — time ‘Adam Smith’ and ‘bitchslapathon’ were used in the same sentence. The things Sepia exposes me to 🙂
This is becoming too much a ritual in this city–New Amsterdam being held hostage every three years by a Mickey Mouse state agency and its sometimes sometimes arrogant union. We deserve better.
A lion’s share of the blame for this morass can be placed sorely on the mighty long feet of Governor Pataki. His indifference to the city (40% of the population of the state and God knows how much of the tax roll) is striking but not suprising. I’m not calling for secession just yet. But I think it’s time the MTA be held accountable to the chief executive of the city and overseen by the city comptroller. I’d like to see the mayor appointing all the executives of the MTA board instead of the invisible wizard in Albany. They’re a bunch of dopes because they can be.
Farehikes: Some are justified and some are not. Actually, the real and nominal cost of riding the transit system went down for most riders. A decade ago, the MTA introduced a unlimited Metrocard and free bus/subway transfers. So the actual pay-per-ride for most riders who commute to work five days a week actually went down, and down even further if your commute involved transfers. I almost can’t remember the pre-Metrocard bad old days . If was lucky enuff to be a union, I’d certainly want it to be led by a apocalyptic apocyphal general like Touissant. Or maybe not. I respect the tireless and thankless work that Ms. Desai has done for the rights of cab drivers in this city but I doubt many of her constituents symapthize wholeheartedly with the union (certainly not ANY of the ones I’ve spoken to). Why? B/C a retirement age of 55 is absurd. Not contributing towards your health insurance in this day and age is a luxury many of us don’t have. I’d like to live in Sweden too but we have to live in the real world. Some MTA employees have difficult jobs in Dickensian conditions, some don’t. Fix those problems (workers not being able to use restrooms, not being able to ask for vacation time) but don’t think you’re going to able to fully able to buck market realities. There are a huge variety of pay scales in the MTA (plus overtime) and for those without or denied education it’s a path to the middle class but it’s perfectly reasonable to consider economic realites. No ..really I’m not bitter at my annual increase which barely matches inflation whcih was certainly not MTA automatic but based on supposedly outstanding performance reviews. Really I’m not. MTA Executive salaries in this case may seem unseemly, but a fiscal red herring. We’re not talking Ken Lay numbers here. Their negligent mismanagement is the issue. Where’s a Bobby Jindal type superstar policy wonk when you need him?
Goes without saying the union movement in this country has been at the forefront of the good fight in history but let’s save the dopey crocodile tears for the suffering union brothers. Perhaps I’ve met a unrepresentative hundred or so (skilled (on-the-job-training)) union guys on train platforms, in the grocery line, in bars, in jury dury, okay lemme stop bugging… mostly at bars but they all made out quite handsomely… certainly better than most..with great benefits and nary a student loan to pay. God Bless ’em. Aight..time for the hour walk home.
The average MTA employee that the average communter like me comes in contact with is downright rude and unfortunately when I’m the kind of commuter who has done nothing to contribute to it it sucks to be on the receiving end of the ire.
I’m sure they deal with a lot of assholes all day but that’s part of the job. If you are in the business of customer service it’s part of the territory. Your good customers do not deserve to be treated like shit because the bad customers are getting to you. In the private sector you get fired for treating your customers like crap and pulling the stuff some of the MTA workers pull.
Forget the visible ones. Ever seen the ones who work on the infrastructure? 1 to work, 3 to watch, 2 to supervise. And they have the power to do it because of the unions.
Woah this isn’t about me vs them. LOL It’s the whole city that is inconvenienced. Frankly I was for a day but I’m a healthy person. I prefer the LIRR to the subway any day and I can work from home. But it stinks for the rest of the city who is forced to put up with this especially the old and the young. They don’t deserve it and it’s a dangerous sitution to put people in considering the weather.
Secondly I have done their job and strongly believe in the philosophy that you should be good at what you do. This ‘entitlement’ shit is passe. If it’s that bad they should go do something else.
people deserve decent pay and benefits no matter what you think of their job. if you’re in the middle class and you happen to lose your job, you’ll become really glad someone else struggled in order to provide some kind of safety net. it happens to quite a lot of people, even hard working people who do all the right things. these people are being villified. instead of complaining about people who get up at 5 am and get home at 7 pm and do really hard jobs for relatively little pay, why not complain about people who really are spoiled
I agree, irrespective of what people do they deserve respect and pay and benefits. But what the TWU is asking for is unreasonable and archaic to todays changing times. There are several benefits I support and hope they manage to get but the strike is holding the city hostage and it’s extortion the way I see it.
Janeofalltrades,
It’s extremely one-sided to say that the TWU is “holding the city hostage.” Competent MTA management and political leadership would have avoided this strike — for how long have they known that the contract would be up this month? And at this point, what the MTA is holding out for would save a paltry $20 million per year — which, pace Gothamist, is “about the amount we think they siphon just by existing.” (Adds Jen, “God, we hate the MTA’s accounting so much.”) I’m sure that on either of their two sets of books, the MTA can find that money, and in any event at this point they are costing the city considerably more in police overtime and the like.
And Pataki and Bloomberg are acting like petulant children, rather than grown-up elected officials who are paid to solve problems like this one. Responsible political leadership would be doing whatever it takes to get the parties back to the bargaining table and end the strike — instead, billion dollar Charlie and our terminally bored governor are doing whatever they can to add gasoline and fan the flames with ridiculous rhetoric that, in Pataki’s case, is probably aimed more at the New Hampshire primary than at trying to end the strike:
Even if they end up break this strike with brute force, using the Taylor Law as a club — probably an illegal use of that law, by the way, since “one side cannot make pensions a condition of a settlement” under that law — they will have poisoned the negotiating atmosphere for years to come with every municipal union. (And for that reason, contrary to one of the posts above, Pataki, Bloomberg, and the MTA have not “stayed within the law” any more or less than the TWU has — a fair case could be made that they are the “thuggish” ones with “no respect for the rule of law.”) But hey, as long as Grover Norquist and Stephen Moore like what they see a little bit better, I suppose that justifies making all of us walk for hours in the cold.
Honestly, these pple work for the government. My parents work for the government, and they get cushy benefits and also get a retirement age that is ridiculously young in today’s economy. Transit workers get paid an average of $47,000/year, health benefits, and a PENSION. Unions were designed to prevent exploitation. How is this exploitation? If anyone is getting exploited, it would be the thousands of undocumented workers and immigrant workers (immigrants- like our ancestors, remember?)who get paid $10,000-$20,000 a year, get paid by the hour, live mostly in the outside boroughs, and are suffering the most from this strike. Does anyone realize how many innocent bystanders will lose their jobs due to this strike?
Actually, according to that New York Times article, the MTA is holding out for what would save only $20 million over THREE years. This is less than what the city will pay for extra police overtime during the FIRST TWO DAYS OF THE STRIKE ALONE. [Link.]
Can someone explain how the MTA’s position makes sense? Seriously.
I take it that the city doesn’t want to set a precedent of paying generous pensions, because the costs could snowball down the road. But is it really worth it?
thanks, bikepath — read that one a bit too quickly.
The $20 million figure is deceiving…From the same Times article:
Given that the city claims the strike has cost hundreds of millions PER DAY to businesses, and has cost the city AT LEAST 20 million in police overtime costs alone, my question is: Why didn’t these actual, present costs of hundreds of millions, outweigh those potential future costs, described in the quote above? (Esp. given that economists say present costs should be weighted more than future costs, as those present outlays would have grown substantially in interest over 20 yrs. if they had been banked) Was the city just being stubborn on principle or because of politics? Or has the city really saved money by taking a hard line?
I’m no economist and am not sure of the answers. Genuinely wondering.
The TWU rejected: 11% compounded raise for a 3 year deal because they wanted 24% over 3 years. MTA agreeing to MLK Day off making 12 paid days off a year. An independent consultant to oversee disciplinary actions. ONLY new workers contributing 1% for health insurance!! ONLY new workers to retire at 62 and contribute 3% of their salary to pension.
I’m no fan of the mismanaged MTA but the TWU is stuck in archaic 1950s mentality. Retire at 55 and pay nothing for insurance and pension…lol thats a joke!!