Screeching Halt

This headline nicely conveys the tone of the coverage of the New York transit strike:

"HEY, UNION JERKS, ENJOY YOUR 'ISLAND' GETAWAY - AT RIKERS"

All right, that was the fair-and-balanced version yesterday in the New York Post (whose front page showed union chief Roger Touissant behind bars with the screamer "JAIL 'EM," while Andrea Peyser 's column was titled "Miserable Crooks Doing What Even 9/11 Couldn't"). But the Daily News carried this story: "It has become an angry refrain as New Yorkers walk, bike and hitch their way through the cold with the striking MTA workers in mind: 'Why don't they just fire them all?' "

Mercifully, the transit employees agreed yesterday to return to work while negotiations resume, but the coverage provides a fascinating window on the city's psyche.

Having lived through a couple of these crippling strikes--one greeted John Lindsay the day he took office as mayor in 1966 and lasted 12 days--I can tell you it's hard to overstate the degree to which it almost shuts the town down. New York traffic is barely functional on a good day, and when the millions of subway and bus riders are displaced, it's chaos. Many people are unable to get to work. And the union obviously intended to inflict maximum damage on business by staging the walkout five days before Christmas.

Without getting too deep into the negotiation weeds, I have two observations. One, the strike was illegal. Two, a major sticking point is pensions. Now, some of the union demands may or may not be justified, but where is it written that Noo Yawk transit workers--unlike, say, most Americans--should get to retire at 55? The transit authority proposed raising that to 62, then backed off. Instead, the authority asked that all new workers' contributions to their retirement be boosted from 2 to 6 percent. No go. End of subway and bus service.

I know that all NY stories get bigger treatment because the big news operations are based there, but the magnitude of the strike is far bigger than if it had occurred in, say, Boston. What's interesting here is that unlike many abstract public policy debates, this is a story that affects virtually everyone writing and talking about it.

Jeff Jarvis has a roundup:

"Editorialists don't like walking to work. A sampling from pissed-off New Yorkers. The Daily News:

" Roger Toussaint, we dare you to take to the Brooklyn Bridge this morning to tell the cold, walking throngs why you chose to disrupt the lives of millions.. It would be delicious watching you try to justify the reckless, lawless transit strike that you have inflicted on the city - assuming your fellow New Yorkers didn't hurl you over the railing into the icy waters before you got a word out.

"The Post:

" Let's not mince words: Transport Workers Union President Roger Toussaint stabbed millions of New Yorkers in the back yesterday -- and then he ran and hid for most of the day. That makes him a thug. And a coward.