(no subject)

[sorrowmonkey]

Thank you zohra, for making me the new icon. I love it best.

Work is ick. The company we are subcontracting through is completely dropping the ball, but we are between a rock and a hard place, since we can't get paid if they don't get paid. We can't really rat them out too badly to the customer, since we warned the customer this could happen, and they decided to do it this way anyhow. A little stressful, overall.

Tonight we have training, from 6:30 PM to whenever. Hopefully, it won't run too late, since the train ride home is 109 minutes.

Luckily, the MTA strike isn't scheduled until Friday, so I don't have to worry too much about getting home. Getting to work on Friday morning might be a trick though. I'm planning on leaving the truck in New Haven, but that won't work too well if the Metro-North is hosed. Should be interesting.

It sounds like the MTA is a bunch of pricks, but at the same time I am not satisfied with civil servants who break the law. If you want to have a dialogue about:

• Whether or not it should be legal for you to srike.
• Your working conditions.
• How screwed up/corrupt the MTA management is.
• How dirty the bathrooms are.
• Whether you should be able to retire after 20 years.

I'm fine with talking about that.

However, if you break the law, I have no sympathy for you whatsoever.

The various governmental and pseudo-governmental agencies in NYC are, generally speaking, a complete clusterfuck. If that wasn't clear enough from just visiting there, listening to the news anywhere on the east coast will tell you that. Also, there were some pretty obvious hints in Rudy's book.

The people in NYC have the government they have chosen for themselves.

If the MTA is a fundamentally corrupt institution, it should be restructured or replaced. These workers should elect officials that will deal with their issues, write letters, and so forth. Striking is not the only way to handle every labor dispute.

Comments

[baronessmartha.livejournal.com]

Where I come from they do it a bit differently than Joe Hill did it. Nurses don't walk off the job. They go to work wearing symbols that say "I am on strike" and off duty nurses walk the picket line. It is interesting. When I was a little girl the firemen went on strike. It looked a lot like a nursing strike. "Are you on strike?" "yes" "How do we know?" "see those people across the street? They are holding signs that say I am on strike." "but you are at work" "yes."

[kuzu-no-ha.livejournal.com]

I agree, but dearest you are from Flint land of the quite corrupt UAW.
Hoffa tried to fix things, now he's in a parking lot in Jersey.
Hell even Sammie tried.

I don't know what the answer is.

[winterswitchery.livejournal.com]

Monkeys.

[temair.livejournal.com]

In CT (1199) they go on strike, bring in SCABS and the DPH has to go out and check up on them (been through this twice now). It sucks.

Lucky us without a contract since June have a provision in our contract that says we CAN NOT strike. So, we work in a building where some of us can and some of us can't.

If the City was smart, they'd put in a no strike clause.

If the Union people were smart, they'd pick two or threee hot ticket items to send to arbitration and see how much the City likes that...

Did I mention I hate unions? I've been on both sides. They no longer serve a defined, useful purpose...

[nrawling.livejournal.com]

Yes, I remember my mom being on strike when I was a kid. She would work all day, and then picket all evening. I used to be able to tell when they were picketing because that was the only time she smoked cigarettes.

[nrawling.livejournal.com]

Well, my last job was working with the feds, and they are all forbidden from striking. For state employees, it seems to very. In Pennsylvania, they are basically not allowed to strike.

In NYC, it *is* illegal for them to strike. The union will pay $1M, and workers will pay $100,000 each on the first day, doubling every day after that. Of course, the city will forgive most of the fines as part of the settlement.

I'm just not impressed. The situation the MTA workers are facing is fundamentally different from the conditions that prompted the original strikes.

[nrawling.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure, either. I'm just pretty certain that striking should not be the first choice in every labor dispute.

I think probably the root problem is that in a representative democracy, you have to make a point to elect decent and qualified representation, and that historically, the City of New York has not done so. The seem (in my opinion) to do better at picking mayors than other offices.

Practice or lack there of

[osgkar.livejournal.com]

HEy they canceled practice again.
SAo if you can work from home on friday you can avoid the whole strike issue.