Asymmetrical Information: Strike!

From a table of Jane Galt:

Strike!

So a movement complement has shut down.

It's not affecting me personally; I'm usually operative from home. (Although we am blank a paper legal holiday lunch, as well as we will be incompetent to inflict legal holiday baked products upon my coworkers, given my office closes for a legal holiday this afternoon.) Other people aren't so lucky. Midtown traffic is ordinarily really bad; upon a misfortune bits of a avenues we can design to go about a single twentieth of a mile each 2-3 mins (one retard per stoplight cycle). But today it is, if we can suppose such a thing, even worse. The news shows have been full of people perplexing to walk to work across a Brooklyn Bridge. It's cold out there.

A couple of blocks to a north of me, 96th street is blocked off by military lines; we saw them when we was out upon foot a dog. It looks similar to something out of a single of those movies where right-wing militants spin America into a military state as well as we have usually 72 hours to get a secret plans to a rebels prior to we go loyal to video.

The union, meanwhile, is running ads upon internal cable whining which they didn't wish to strike, they usually had to since a MTA is so horrible to them. This is not true. The kinship is really hard left, similar to movement unions in many places. I'm not certain since this should be; perhaps since many of a workers have to do really small to earn their pay. The sight drivers don't actually, y'know, drive; a rails take caring of that. I'm told which they could simply be replaced with a kind of self-driving systems we see in airports, if a kinship weren't so powerful. Admittedly, a conductors have been rarely skilled: it takes them years to learn to drivel into a announcement microphones in a secret language which no a single in a complete universe except them understands. But their categorical utilitarian charge appears to be sticking their heads outside a window to make certain no one's limbs have been sticking out of a train, a pursuit which could be eliminated if idiots didn't try to squeeze themselves by shutting doors since they know a transmitter will keep a sight from driving off with their arm fluttering out a door. And a first responsibility of a toll both workers is creation certain which a line to buy Metrocards never gets shorter than 10 feet. All of these jobs leave a good understanding of time for contemplation, which a movement workers presumably spend eradicating each heirloom of false consciousness.

The point being which a workers did in truth wish a strike. They've been itching for it for years. That's since they know they will win. In a in isolation sector, a company would probably fire them as well as replace them with machines. But this is not a in isolation sector, as well as a movement kinship controls not usually a large series of votes, though a outrageous volume of funding. The City Council recently altered a law to concede domestic campaign contributions to come from particular locals, rsther than than a national union. That means which they can pitch a outrageous cube of shift by getting locals from around a counry to present to a council members.

There's a surprising upsurge of sentiment for going Ronald Reagan upon them. This will not happen; Reagan had a large haven of skilled air-traffic controllers from a military which he could instantly muster to take over a ATC jobs whilst brand new people were trained. There's no such haven of non-union sight drivers, as well as whilst driving a transport sight is not exactly rocket science, movement folks have been still haunted by a actuality which a single of a misfortune transport disasters in New York history occurred when scabs were brought in during a set upon in a early twentieth century. That's even supposed which there were union-busters in a Metropolitan Transit Authority; there aren't. The organization is completely Democratic, as is a city power structure which is perplexing to influence a negotiations.

But a union's position is surprisingly unsympathetic, even to liberal New Yorkers. The workers make an normal of $55K, some-more than what your normal New York journalist makes. They have a intemperate pension, upon which they can retire during 55, as well as incredible benefits. And nonetheless to judge from their interactions with typical New Yorkers, we would think which they were enslaved in Egypt. Everyone we know detects an expression of positive glee upon a faces of a conductors who close a doorway usually as we have been getting to it, or a booth user who creates we stand there, examination a trains come as well as go, whilst she stacks her pennies in nurse piles. No a single I've talked to feels which they have been entitled to some-more money, fewer disciplinary hearings, or improved benefits. Everyone seems pretty fervent to see a movement workers forced to wait for until their sixties to retire similar to a rest of us. It's not as if a bulk of a jobs have been so physically demanding which it's irrational to design them to keep sitting in their booths for an additional 10 years.

It won't happen. The kinship will win, as unions regularly win in New York City. All this set upon is you do is providing moderate fad to stranded New Yorkers prior to a MTA caves. Sic semper tyrannis.

Posted by Jane Galt during Dec 20, 2005 07:22 AM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links

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