(The Associated Press circulated the following article on December 20.)
NEW YORK — The nation’s largest mass transit system endured its first strike in a quarter-century Tuesday, stranding 7 million riders in the December cold as negotiations remained stalled and a judge imposed a $1 million-a-day fine on the striking union.
State Supreme Court Justice Theodore Jones leveled the sanction against the Transport Workers Union for violating state law by going on strike.
Attorneys for the city and state had asked Jones to hit the union with a “very potent fine” for ignoring the law.
“This is a very, very sad day in the history of labor relations for New York City,” Jones said in imposing the fine. The union vowed to immediately appeal, calling it an excessive fine.
The draconian penalty could force the union off the picket lines and back on the job. Its 33,000 members are already facing individual fines of two days pay for every day they are on strike.
The courtroom drama followed a day where the strike proved more aggravation than Armageddon. The morning rush hour did not produce a feared gridlock in midtown Manhattan, partly because of severe traffic restrictions. Only cars with four or more occupants were allowed to enter the heart of the city between 5 a.m. and 11 a.m., resulting in lengthy backups at bridges, tunnels and streets just outside the restricted area.
For commuters facing the first strike since the 11-day 1980 walkout, it was a day to adapt — and there were a variety of options. Some boarded water taxis down the Hudson River, others jumped into carpools, some just stayed home. As they did after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the
2003 blackout, New Yorkers managed to get on with life.
“Hey, can I get a ride?” Jay Plastino asked a neighbor near his home in the northern tip of Manhattan. Plastino, who was headed to his midtown job, was angry at the union: “This is a big city. Don’t they realize that?”
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, with the temperature at 24 degrees and the winds swirling, led an army of Brooklynites across the Brooklyn Bridge and into Manhattan early Tuesday. The mayor, who walked across from the city’s emergency operations bunker, was followed by commuters on scooters, roller skates and bicycles.
Others followed his lead and simply walked, as they did during the April 1980 strike. Then-mayor Edward Koch greeted people as they crossed the bridge into Manhattan during that walkout.
Throughout midtown and lower Manhattan, workers queued up in the cold to await company-run buses that replaced the idled city subways and buses, or generously shared yellow cabs that became the most popular vehicles in New York. There was a flat $10 fee for cab riders.
“The city is functioning, and functioning well considering the severe circumstances,” Bloomberg said before ripping into the union.
The TWU “shamefully decided they don’t care about the people they work for, and they have no respect for the law,” said Bloomberg, his tone particularly strident. “Their leadership thuggishly turned its back on the New York City. This strike is costing us.”
It was costing Jack Akameiza, 66, a day’s pay. He was trying to get from Manhattan to Coney Island — typically the last stop on the D train from his home in the Bronx. He made it as far as Grand Central Terminal, where he was trying to find a carpool.
“I cannot go to work,” he said. “I cannot take care of my family.”
Some commuters were upset at the union, others with management. Some, as they made their way to work, blamed both sides.
“It’s two arrogant groups not caring that 7 million people are inconvenienced,” said Kenny Herbert, 45, of Brooklyn, who took the train to work Monday night but needed a water taxi across the East River to get home.
The illegal strike violated the state’s Taylor Law, putting the union’s members at dire financial risk — two days’ pay for every day on strike.
They could additionally face contempt charges or possible jail time.
Although no negotiations were set, union lawyer Walter Meginniss Jr. — after testifying at a the court hearing on sanctions — then left Brooklyn to meet with three mediators in Manhattan. The contentious talks broke down Monday night when the union rejected a final offer from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority four days after its contract expired.
TWU attorney Arthur Schwartz accused the MTA of provoking the strike — a charge that Gov. George Pataki disputed.
“The TWU has broken the law,” Pataki told a Manhattan news conference.
“That is wrong, and they will suffer the consequences. They should end this illegal strike and come back to the table.”
The International TWU, the union’s parent, had urged the local not to go on strike.
The first day of the strike was expected to cost the city $400 million in revenue, with an additional loss of $300 million per day afterward, according to the city comptroller’s office. A weeklong strike would cost the city about $1.6 billion, and Bloomberg said that hundreds of stores and restaurants were affected by the walkout — particularly in lower Manhattan.
The union said the latest MTA offer included annual raises of 3 percent,
4 percent and 3.5 percent; the previous proposal included 3 percent raises each year. Pension issues were another major sticking point in the talks, particularly involving new employees.
Union head Roger Toussaint said the union wanted a better offer from the MTA, especially when the agency has a $1 billion surplus this year.
While traffic was Sunday morning light in swaths of midtown Manhattan, there were problems elsewhere that included 80-minute delays at the George Washington Bridge, one of the few crossings into Manhattan where the passenger minimum was not in effect.
Traffic at the Queens Midtown Tunnel was backed up for six miles, and there were long delays at other East River bridges and tunnels.
Yet traffic at the Lincoln and Holland tunnels was just a quarter of the usual volume, and park and ride venues set up at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and Shea Stadium in Queens drew about as many people as you might expect at two baseball stadiums in December.
In parts of the Bronx, there was little traffic, perhaps because Metro-North commuter trains were operating there with ridership more than doubled. The Long Island Rail Road carried 50,000 more passengers than its usual 100,000. PATH train ridership in Manhattan doubled to more than 33,000.
The parking lot at Shea drew only a few dozen cars, indicating some folks took a vacation with only five shopping days until Christmas. Many of the She drivers, including a large contingent from Bloomberg Financial, arrived to find company buses for the trip into Manhattan.