Shivering, intrepid and occasionally befuddled, New Yorkers yesterday faced down the first citywide transit strike in a quarter-century, walking, biking and car-pooling through their city as transit workers and the state agency that employs them remained locked in intransigence.
A horde trying to board Long Island Rail Road trains at Pennsylvania Station this evening was so large that the police shut two entrances to the station, leaving more than 1,000 commuters penned along Seventh Avenue.
Text: Mayor Bloomberg's Afternoon Statement (December 20, 2005)
Text: Mayor Bloomberg's Morning Statement (December 20, 2005)
Text: Roger Toussaint's Statement (December 20, 2005)
Preliminary Injunction (NYCTA / MTA v. TWU, AFL-CIO) (findlaw.com)Video: Bloomberg's Press Conference (nyc.gov)
Guide to Commuting
A look at transportation options and readers' stories from the commute.
Voices From the Commute
With the usual ways to work blocked, commuters improvised.
• Analysis by Sewell Chan
The Strike's Impact
MORE PHOTOGRAPHS
• Day 1: Getting In | Getting Out
• The 1980 Transit Strike
READERS' OPINIONS
• Share Your Commuting Stories
RESOURCES
• City's Contingency Plan
• Important Facts and Numbers
Millions of subway and bus commuters stood at street corners, clutching paper coffee cups, waiting for private buses, taxis or drivers willing to take urban hitchhikers out of the 20-degree morning chill just hours after the Transport Workers Union announced a general strike.
In the evening, the commuters crammed train stations and spilled into the streets, trying to escape the city.
As people from every walk of life competed for the quickest or most creative way to get to work, and businesses struggled in one of the most important retail weeks of the year, the conflict between the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and its largest union moved squarely into the courts. The initial decisions went against the union.
First, a State Supreme Court justice in Brooklyn, calling the strike illegal, ordered the union members back to work - a demand echoed by the union's parent organization. He also hit the union with a contempt order requiring a $1 million fine for each day it is on strike. And he said he would consider $1,000 daily fines of its leaders, on top of the automatic fines against individual workers.
Then, the state's Public Employment Relations Board dismissed the union's complaint that the authority had violated state law by negotiating pensions.
"This is a very sad day in the history of the labor movement in New York City," Justice Theodore T. Jones said as he issued his contempt order.
Roger Toussaint, the union's president, appeared initially undaunted, calling the fine excessive and predicting that, "in the end, I think it will be abated."
However, he then took a more conciliatory tone, saying he would like to resume negotiations.
The strike began after talks between the union and the transportation authority - which gripped the entire city in a vise of anxiety for weeks - broke apart late Monday night, after the union rejected the authority's last offer. The authority had agreed to drop its previous demand to raise the retirement age for a full pension to 62 for new transit employees, up from 55 for current employees, but said it expected all future transit workers to pay 6 percent of their wages toward their pensions, up from the current 2 percent.
The offer was rejected, and at 3 a.m., officials from Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union announced the strike - even though its parent organization said it did not support the strike.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg decried the strike as "thuggish," and "selfish" and declared that negotiations - in which the city does not participate - should not resume until the 33,700 subway and bus workers return to their jobs. He made his comments several hours before Mr. Toussaint suggested the union was ready to resume bargaining.
"The T.W.U. has violated the laws of our land by defying an order of the court," Mr. Bloomberg said. Citing various other unions with which he has negotiated, he said, "They never walked out on the job, walked out on New York, and hurt the people that they worked for."
Gary J. Dellaverson, the authority's director of labor relations, said that the authority had asked for binding arbitration, telling the Public Employment Relations Board that it believed the dispute had reached an impasse and suggesting a move toward arbitration. Mr. Toussaint has repeatedly rejected arbitration, asserting that it would deny union members the right to vote on a contract.
"New Yorkers are concerned about being inconvenienced and being caught in between us and the M.T.A. and the governor and the mayor," Mr. Toussaint said. "The reason that people are upset about this is their general sense that this need not have occurred because of the billion-dollar surplus" that the authority has this year.
As of last night, no new negotiations had been scheduled, although Tom Kelly, an authority spokesman, said it was ready to meet at any time.
