“Daddy, where were you during the Great Transit Strike of 2005?” “Why, honey, the exact same place I was during the Great Blackout of 2003 (or was it 2004?) — sitting in a Manhattan apartment, getting stoned, and wondering if the bar scene was going to be really boisterous. Then I remembered I was really stoned and went to sleep early.”
I’m not trying to be too glib about the Big Inconvenience, but considering that sometime between midnight tonight (should the strike actually take place) and midnight tomorrow, someone, somewhere will compare their circumstance to Katrina or the Tsunami, and there’s a good chance it will be in front of a hapless local news reporter trying to find a better spin for the ‘it really sucks to walk story”, I guess I’m excusing myself a wee bit for stifling a yawn.
Of course, it’s not a yawn worthy situation, considering how far apart the two sides are, and what myriad levels of incompetence are being revealed by this. We are all used to media-savvy grandstanding (the Times found a TWU member — who apparently works in a part of the subway that lacks potable water — that claimed they were treated like “Fourth World” peoples), and massive gaps in the relative positions. All these ostensible leaders are staking out drastic ground to justify their pay and chauffeured rides (isn’t it ironic that all the public transit employees and union reps get ferried by car? Wouldn’t it be cheaper and more symbolically satisfying to give out free MetroCards?).
The union wants a 6,000% raise, and the right to retire next week, and the MTA wants the staff to perform their own appendectomies and to commit suicide upon retirement. Perhaps they aren’t that far apart, but I haven’t been looking that closely.
And who can blame them for being at loggerheads? After talking all of 75 minutes on Tuesday, everyone threw up their hands… and probably when to a hockey match. The union is claiming the MTA is hiding evidence of the surplus, a claim the MTA shrugged off as less than ridiculous because everyone knows there’s not a chance in hell that MTA actually has that much of a grasp of their finances.
The big news today was that the head of the MTA, Peter Kalikow was going to join in the negotiations. Yup, it was news that he was going to, you know, come to work today. Which is a sight better than our governor — off in New Hampshire, raising money for his political consultant jobs program — was doing.
Yes, that’s right. Scratch a local or state issue rife with incompetence that ranges from the everyday abysmal and scales up to borderline criminal, and you will find the goofy grin of the world’s luckiest Westchester pasty. Working overtime to be get himself remembered as the worst governor of his generation, Pataki’s all-thumbs-prints are everywhere, from appointing people who are worse at numbers than circulation managers at the tabloids, to pandering to suburban voters by forcing unequal fare increases, to now standing idly by while the one of the greatest public transit systems grinds to a halt a week before one of the most important tourist weeks (and one of the coldest Decembers on record) of the year.
Surely the TWU has to get real healthcare costs and pension expense (and recognize that evaporating pensions and retirement benefits in the private sector are going to make the typical base of support far less sympathetic to their retire at 55 deal), and the MTA has to get real, at, well, managing the books (you can’t credibly argue you have long-term financial planning issues when you report swings from surplus to deficit and back in a single fiscal year), but none of these things would seem as dire, or insurmountable if we had a leader.
Then again, maybe Pataki spends his ‘crisis’ times the same way I do, which would go a long way to explaining his inaction. But that’s not what I’m paying him to do, and can you imagine a more annoying stoner? He’d never have his own (yammering about how he’s can’t get busted, cause of his job), and would probably want to spend the whole night eating Cheetos and watching the Young Ones. Come to think of it, I’d better make sure I’ve got some Cheetos; Metro-North is saying they’re going all in on this too…
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Let me be the first to make a Nancy Sinatra reference.
“Daddy, where were you during the Great Transit Strike of 2005?” “Why, honey, the exact same place I was during the Great Blackout of 2003 (or was it 2004?) — sitting in a Manhattan apartment, getting stoned, and wondering if the bar scene was going to be really boisterous. Then I remembered I was really stoned and went to sleep early.”
I’m not trying to be too glib about the Big Inconvenience, but considering that sometime between midnight tonight (should the strike actually take place) and midnight tomorrow, someone, somewhere will compare their circumstance to Katrina or the Tsunami, and there’s a good chance it will be in front of a hapless local news reporter trying to find a better spin for the ‘it really sucks to walk story”, I guess I’m excusing myself a wee bit for stifling a yawn. Of course, it’s not a yawn worthy situation, considering how far apart the two sides are, and what myriad levels of incompetence are being revealed by this. We are all used to media-savvy grandstanding (the Times found a TWU member — who apparently works in a part of the subway that lacks potable water — that claimed they were treated like “Fourth World” peoples), and massive gaps in the relative positions. All these ostensible leaders are staking out drastic ground to justify their pay and chauffeured rides (isn’t it ironic that all the public transit employees and union reps get ferried by car? Wouldn’t it be cheaper and more symbolically satisfying to give out free MetroCards?). The union wants a 6,000% raise, and the right to retire next week, and the MTA wants the staff to perform their own appendectomies and to commit suicide upon retirement. Perhaps they aren’t that far apart, but I haven’t been looking that closely. And who can blame them for being at loggerheads? After talking all of 75 minutes on Tuesday, everyone threw up their hands… and probably when to a hockey match. The union is claiming the MTA is hiding evidence of the surplus, a claim the MTA shrugged off as less than ridiculous because everyone knows there’s not a chance in hell that MTA actually has that much of a grasp of their finances. The big news today was that the head of the MTA, Peter Kalikow was going to join in the negotiations. Yup, it was news that he was going to, you know, come to work today. Which is a sight better than our governor — off in New Hampshire, raising money for his political consultant jobs program — was doing. Yes, that’s right. Scratch a local or state issue rife with incompetence that ranges from the everyday abysmal and scales up to borderline criminal, and you will find the goofy grin of the world’s luckiest Westchester pasty. Working overtime to be get himself remembered as the worst governor of his generation, Pataki’s all-thumbs-prints are everywhere, from appointing people who are worse at numbers than circulation managers at the tabloids, to pandering to suburban voters by forcing unequal fare increases, to now standing idly by while the one of the greatest public transit systems grinds to a halt a week before one of the most important tourist weeks (and one of the coldest Decembers on record) of the year.Surely the TWU has to get real healthcare costs and pension expense (and recognize that evaporating pensions and retirement benefits in the private sector are going to make the typical base of support far less sympathetic to their retire at 55 deal), and the MTA has to get real, at, well, managing the books (you can’t credibly argue you have long-term financial planning issues when you report swings from surplus to deficit and back in a single fiscal year), but none of these things would seem as dire, or insurmountable if we had a leader.
Then again, maybe Pataki spends his ‘crisis’ times the same way I do, which would go a long way to explaining his inaction. But that’s not what I’m paying him to do, and can you imagine a more annoying stoner? He’d never have his own (yammering about how he’s can’t get busted, cause of his job), and would probably want to spend the whole night eating Cheetos and watching the Young Ones. Come to think of it, I’d better make sure I’ve got some Cheetos; Metro-North is saying they’re going all in on this too…