Aaahhh...the Strike.

I heard today that the NY Transit Strike will probably be ending tomorrow so I thought I'd take the opportunity to vent my opinion of the first transit strike this city has seen since 1980. Please keep in mind that this is an opinion so you can take it or leave it, like or not like it, there's no reason to get tiffy about it. So here we go: while I can appreciate the fact that unions represent their workers in order to ensure that they receive fair treatment from employers, there was no unfair treatment going on here. The issues being debated (or at least, the ones we've been told) are : The MTA wants to raise the retirement age to 62, the workers want to retire at 55. The workers want less stringent disciplinary actions. The workers want their health benefits to continue to be free. They want cost of living raises of 8% a year. I'm sure there's more to it than this but these are the big ones the media has reported. Here's the deal: 62 is the standard retirement age across the country. If they've been retiring at 55, that's a bonus. The change would be to a national standard age, not beyond. That is not unfair. Less stringent disciplinary action. Hm, I don't really know what exactly the disciplinary policies are but, come on. You fuck up, you pay the price. End of story. Not Unfair. Free health benefits. Ok, this is the one that really gets under my skin. The cost of health care is going up. Millions of people are without health benefits of any kind (yours truly included), I think it's something like 1 in 8 New Yorkers has no health insurance. The vast majority of people who DO have health insurance have to pay something for it. So if the MTA workers aren't willing to pay for what they get when millions of other people don't have it, then too fucking bad. You want health insurance, you pay for it. End of story. Not Unfair. Cost of living raises. Ok this one kind of makes some sense, but considering I've never in my life gotten a "cost of living" raise and I'm still not living on the street I think they'll be 0k. Not Unfair. So there you have it. My opinion of the NY Transit Strike of 2005: Total Bullshit.

Not to mention they ruined by birthday party because none of my friends could get to it without the trains.