NYC Transit Union Hints at Pension Deal

[Starbucks Anarchist]

NEW YORK - Threatened with huge fines and possible jail time, the city's transit union suggested Wednesday that it would be willing to end a strike that has shut down bus and subway service for two days — if a plan to change workers' pensions were dropped.

The union's suggestion came as millions of New Yorkers again trudged to and from work — some walking miles, others riding bicycles and in-line skates in the morning's 24-degree chill.

The contract covering 33,000 New York transit workers expired last week, and the union called the strike Tuesday morning despite a state law banning public employee strikes.

According to the union president, the sticking point is a proposed change in pensions. The Metropolitan Transit Authority's last contract proposed maintaining a retirement age of 55 but increasing what new hires contribute to the pension plan. New employees would pay 6 percent of their wages during their first 10 years, rather than the current 2 percent.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051222/ap_on_re_us/nyc_transit_strike

[Mind_your_head]

1. So they compromise at 4%?

:shrug:

But perhaps they shouldn't compromise at all.....

[Mind_your_head]

2. Why compromise? What will the benefit be if they do? n/t

[me b zola]

3. Pensions.

Wow, how many of us are all the happier to cheer them overboard while the fat-cats get fatter.

My father came of age during the depression, and then signed up for WWll, in the belly of a B-24(ball & turret gunner). When he came home he held a few jobs before he worked for the post office. When he retired, he was afforded a pension that was not extravogant, but just.

What the fuck has become of us that LIBERALS are not standing behind basic worker rights????????????????

[Mind_your_head]

4. Men who were assigned as gunners in those ball & turret thingys

had a life expectancy of about 6 weeks.

I'm no expert, but are you sure it was a B-24? (just googled up some images that I am unable to post).

[me b zola]

5. Ah, yes, I'm sure

He was first stationed in Northern Africa, then in Italy. He flew the mission of Normandy, and many more crucial missions over Europe. My father was much taller in height than most ball & turret gunners--he was a wopping 5'10" when they were mostly men of very small stature. My father, who passed in 1991, had received 3 purple hearts, the third we did not know about until his passing because he had "refused" it.

Here is a poem that I found a few years after my father's passing:



The Death Of The Ball Turret Gunner


From my mother's sleep I fell into the State
And I hunched into it's belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life.
I woke to black flak and the nighmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.