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It looks like the Transport Workers Union holds all the good cards with its threat to shut down the largest transit system in America. A strike would cause major disruptions for 7 million daily subway and bus riders and cost the city’s economy up to $660 million per day in lost business activity. The union plans to hold the city hostage until it gets what it wants – a big raise.But elected officials aren’t exactly helpless, either. Governor Pataki can look to President Reagan’s example of how to deal with an illegal strike.In 1981, when 13,000 out of 17,500 air traffic controllers went on strike and disrupted airline transportation, President Reagan issued an ultimatum: Get back to work in 48 hours, or you’re fired. Within a week, 1,200 of the strikers went back to work. More than 11,000 of the illegal strikers lost their jobs. Within four weeks of the onset of the strike, 45,000 people applied for jobs as air traffic controllers.While the MTA has offered the union a 5% total pay raise spread over two years, the union is demanding a 24% total raise over three years.One problem with this demand is that the union’s members are not doing so badly in the first place. The starting salary for a NYC Transit train operator is $52,644 a year, before overtime. In the new contracts that the city’s municipal unions negotiated this year, the starting salary for a New York Police Department officer will be $25,100 a year, which goes up to $32,700 after six months. A New York City firefighter’s starting salary will be $25,100 and sanitation workers will get $26,000 to start.On Saturday, the 33,700-member transit union authorized a strike unless the MTA concedes to its demands by the time the current contract expires at 12:01 a.m. Friday. TWU Local 100 President Roger Toussaint said, according to an account in the New York Times, “We need to give them a taste of how incensed, insulted and disgusted we are.”Mr. Toussaint is incensed? On the contrary, it’s the straphangers who should be disgusted.The transit workers union acts like it owns the system. The MTA and the TWU are just the caretakers of the system. It is the riders that are the true owners of the system. In fact, they make mortgage payments on it every day when they swipe their MetroCards.It is the straphangers who will be asked to pay higher fares to reduce a projected $700 million deficit in 2008 and a $1 billion deficit in 2009. The TWU’s demand for a 24% raise would grow that deficit by about $500 million more by 2009, putting even more pressure on fares to go even higher.It’s amazing that the transit union has no problem with disrupting the lives of commuters, students, shoppers, tourists, patients visiting doctors, and everyone else who takes the subway. A strike would cost New York City taxpayers $10 million a day in extra police overtime and other expenses. And, an economic analysis by the city found that if there is a transit strike, businesses located in the city would suffer between $440 million to $660 million a day in lost business activity.But that means nothing to the union. It is willing to risk the city’s financial well-being because its members are upset over rising health care and pension costs. Join the club. Saving for retirement and the rising cost of health care insurance are problems that all New Yorkers are dealing with.The MTA’s employee pension costs have tripled over the past three years, reaching $453 million for the current year. That comes out of the fare box. While the authority is willing to carry all of its current employees’ health insurance costs, it wants future employees to pay 2% of their wages toward health insurance. That seems fair. Especially considering that most transit riders already pay part of their own health care costs.In 1967, one year after a transit strike, the state legislature passed the Taylor law, which makes it illegal for public employees to strike. TWU members work for a state authority, so strikers would be fined two days’ pay for every day that they strike.That’s a good start, but not enough of a punishment.Because this is a state authority, Mr. Pataki should instruct his appointees on the MTA board to get tough with the union. When Reagan stood up to the air traffic controllers, the public did not side with union, it sided with the president.The MTA already has a backlog of 21,749 people who have applied for jobs with the authority. Heck, with a starting salary of more than $52,000 a year for a conductor, of course they do.It’s once again time for a bold move to deal with an illegal strike by government workers who are willing to put the general population at risk. If the TWU walks, it’s time to start hiring for the jobs that they leave behind.

Start Hiring

Start Hiring

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