It’s been super busy on my end, and there’s loads to talk about, but not much time (I’m in the middle of wrapping up some major), though I could really use a little bitch break right about now (cuz there’s always time to complain!)…
So I guess it’s going to happen: the MTA (the folks that run all the subways and buses for you non-NYC residents reading this) might actually be going on strike, tonight at midnight.
I must confess, I’m rather shocked that a strike might actually go down. I considered it an impossibility that the city would ever let such an occurrence take place on a work day, and in the middle of the busy holiday shopping season. Though the writing has been on the wall; subway service has been shitter than usual for the past two weeks, at least for me, with a sharp rise in fucked-up service (I’ve been stuck on a train for close to an hour for no logical reason about three times now this week… I don’t even remember the last time I was remotely on time for ANYTHING for a while now). This of course is nothing new… the MTA tried fucking with the city a few years back when the last strike was looming to show everyone that “they mean business.” And since the city was so willing to bend over and take it last time around, is it any wonder why the MTA is so brash this time around?
Keeping track of all the finer details of the strike has been difficult, perhaps because the MTA and it’s workers’ union know that they are completely unsympathetic assholes in all of this. The workers want more money. Well, guess what? We all want more money, but when you are in a position when the whole city depends on your services, you have to be at least considerate about your actions, and not just walk off when you are needed the most. Perhaps I would be far more sympathetic if not for the outrageous salaries which I understand most subway workers already have (getting consistent info is damn near impossible… gee I wonder why). So they don’t want to work without a contract. Gee, well if the police can work without one (for what, like three years now?), why the hell can’t the subway workers? They already get the same degree of protection as cops (the fact that assaulting a subway worker is considered a federal offense, yet teachers and doctors do not recieve the same degree of protection… you know, people that actually contribute to society…. which is a goddann joke). And from what I understand, the worker’s union found their management’s proposal a total joke, but them wanting a 8-10% pay increase every year is beyond unrealisitc. They also seemed angry at the concept of raises being depended on work performance, and I guess I’d be worried too about if I did such a piss-poor job on a regular basis.
And speaking of MTA management, we all know what fucking retards they all are. They constantly claim that they need more money because they’re running on empty, yet whenever the city gives in, some magical surplus ends up appearing. Not only are they corrupted from top to bottom (the multiple books anyone?), but they don’t even know what to do with money once they get it (like the federal government taking back the money they were given from 9/11 to strength the infrastructure simply because they weren’t doing anything with it). But then there’s the government: you’ve got a governor who just jetted out of town to go presidential campaigning and a mayor that made himself look like a total douchebag the last time this came up (with his idiotic “hey everyone, just go out and buy a bike!” response), and is therefore not saying much of anything. Of wait, there is “a plan” in place which is a complete joke.
This morning, everyone at work got another email from our employers stating that if the subway strike actually does happens tonight there’s NO missing work, no if’s, and’s or but’s…. no calling in sick or anything of the like. So as I figure, considering the distance between where I live in Brooklyn and where I work in Manhattan, its going to take about three hours to walk to work. Plus they say its going to rain tomorrow morning as well….
