Image credit to Gabrielle Holtermann
On Wednesday, Oct. 30, thousands of members of the Transportation Workers Union (TWU) Local 100, the largest transportation workers union, rallied in lower Manhattan over the lack of compliancy in negotiations from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) concerning their contract renewal. According to The Wall Street Journal, 40,000 transit workers have been working without a contract for the MTA since Wednesday, May 15, of this year, mainly because there has been no agreement over the preposterous offers that have been laid on the table by the MTA.
One of the offers was to change the circumstances surrounding overtime. According to the New York Daily News, instead of implementing overtime pay for working over eight hours a day, the MTA has offered to pay its workers overtime only if they have worked more than 40 hours in a given week. The offer also included a cut on health care benefits for workers and a policy allowing MTA supervisors to change the contract if they believe a worker has taken too many days off.
Workers are furious. These offers are an insult to their work lifestyle. It basically says that the MTA does not care for its workers – that they are replaceable, especially with the threat of layoffs hovering over workers’ heads due to the supposed lack of funds in the MTA. Many rely on their current overtime situation to pay their bills. Men, such as my father, would work multiple 16-hour shifts in a week in order to build up enough funds to pay for car loans, school bills and utilities. New York is an expensive place to live, especially with two daughters.
Without the current benefits that make working at the MTA worthwhile, why should the workers continue? They could strike again as they did back in 2005, which happened due to a previous failure in contract negotiations with the MTA. According to CBS News, another transit workers strike would cause mass chaos for New Yorkers. Commuters would have to find alternate ways to get to their destination. Trains and buses would be halted for what could possibly be days. There would be heavier congestion on bridges and streets throughout the metro area, for the only way to get to one’s destination would be by paying for a taxi or an Uber. Since the city traffic tends to flow onto Long Island parkways, any expedited routes, such as those with the Long Island Railroad, would be of no use. You would still be walking to work.
So, when transit workers say, “We move New York,” it is not just a clever choice of words; it’s reality. We rely on transit workers to keep us going in our fast-paced, rat-race lives. There is no denying it, no matter how much you wish to curse the bus driver when he misses your stop or shake with outrage because of a 20-minute delay on the train. You may not always see the person that is behind the wheel, but they are a person like you and me. They have a family. They have goals and dreams. They have good and bad days. The only difference between us and them is that on those days, they have to deal with thousands of people and their outrage toward the MTA.
That is why when the MTA drags its feet when making the same negotiations that it has always made with its workers, one must wonder … Why? The MTA knows what would happen if the workers decide to strike. The MTA knows how much it means to our lives. Because of this knowledge, the MTA should listen to its workers and actually act upon the supposed fairness that it claims to possess, instead of repeating mistakes.
Letisha Dass is a Hofstra student and the daughter of an MTA worker who is a member of TWU Local 100.
