The Political Battle Ahead

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

Governor Weld’s challenge to Attorney General Spitzer to take a stand in the transit strike points to the way forward from the chaos into which the city has been plunged. The strike is a blatantly illegal act of economic sabotage by a union so selfish that it is willing to destroy one of the most important business weeks in the city in a last-ditch attempt to preserve privileges that most private sector employees can only dream of. It is a case of premeditated illegality that actually deserves the high-octane, out-front law enforcement that Mr. Spitzer has reserved for use against Wall Street tycoons.


Yet so far Mr. Spitzer has been hiding behind the skirts of Governor Pataki, whom he is supposed to represent. No doubt Mr. Spitzer is keeping out of the limelight in hopes of union backing when he runs for governor. Mr. Weld, in an interview quoted by our Jacob Gershman on page 1, vows that he’d be far more aggressive than Mr. Spitzer in dealing with the problem of the transit union and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Which we mention because we don’t believe for a New York nanosecond that the problems that have delivered chaos to the city this week are matters that can be dealt with in negotiations with a scofflaw like Roger Toussaint.


Or with the currently constituted management of the MTA. The union may be primarily to blame for the strike. But mismanagement by the MTA is the deeper problem. In 2003 it raised the subway fare to $2 from $1.50 while claiming that the system was in a fiscal crunch. Then all of a sudden the authority that can’t get a train through a tunnel in a spring shower discovered a surplus so large that it decided to cut the fare to $1 as a holiday present to riders. You don’t have to be a labor-management negotiating genius to know that the best moment to discover a billion dollar surplus isn’t on the eve of triennial contract negotiations.


The sense of cynicism wasn’t lessened when a contract for new subway cars was awarded on the basis of a reported $500,000 phone call by a former senator, Alfonse D’Amato. Or when indictments were handed up for over-billing in connection with renovations to the MTA headquarters at 2 Broadway. If the MTA moves even a scintilla toward the union’s demands as the result of this strike, it would reward the union’s illegal behavior and send to the dozens of other unions who do business with the state, the city, and the public authorities a message of appeasement – that if you want a better contract, go on strike, even if it is against the law.


The right move for the MTA now is to take an extremely hard line with the Transport Workers Union Local 100, refusing, as Mayor Bloomberg has urged, to negotiate with this union until the employees are back on the job. The Taylor Law provides for docking strikers’ pay and could also mean jailing the union leaders. Yet, amazingly, Governor Pataki and the MTA have been caught flatfooted. They failed to scramble to hire and train replacement manpower to replace permanently the illegal strikers. That’s what President Reagan did during the air traffic controllers’ strike.


Which brings us back to the election less than a year hence. The MTA symbolizes everything that is wrong with Albany – the corruption, the cronyism, the unwillingness to stand up to the public employee unions. Their outrageous entitlements (please see the related editorial above). Empire State voters are already angry at the incumbents in Albany, as evidence by a poll this fall by New Yorkers for Term Limits that found 77% of New Yorkers favor “placing term limits on members of the State Legislature and the governor so they can not serve any longer than eight consecutive years in the same office.” Serious businesses are getting seriously hurt by this strike. Mr. Pataki spent the run-up to this fiasco off in other states campaigning for the presidency of America. He has left behind wonderful tinder for a historic governor’s race here at home, and we look forward to the coming battle among the Republicans and then between the Republican nominee and Mr. Spitzer or another candidate from the party of the public employee unions.


The New York Sun

© 2024 The New York Sun Company, LLC. All rights reserved.

Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. The material on this site is protected by copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used.

The New York Sun

Sign in or  Create a free account

or
By continuing you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use