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Other public unions watch, cheer transit union

BY WILLIAM MURPHY | STAFF WRITER

December 21, 2005

The unions representing city workers are flocking to support striking transit workers who have taken on the establishment with a militancy that is rare for local public sector unions.

And many are watching intently to see what the transit strike bodes for their own members in future rounds of negotiations.

Stanley Aronowitz, a sociology professor at the City University Graduate Center, said that for at least two decades most local unions in the public sector have gotten wage increases below the rate of inflation and had to make other concessions.

The main police union, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, he noted, agreed to a reduced starting salary for new police officers in its recent contract to help fund pay raises for those already on the force.

"The transit union is taking a tremendous amount of responsibility for what the whole New York City labor movement should be doing," said Aronowitz, a labor historian who is also active in his own union, the Professional Staff Congress.

The strike comes at a time when the labor movement has suffered serious setbacks at every level. Most recently, auto workers are being asked to take unheard-of cuts in pay and benefits, and union membership continues to free-fall in the private sector.

The booming American economy after World War II saw private sector unions like steelworkers and auto workers setting the standard in wages and benefits for their counterparts in government.

But that pattern no longer exists, Assemb. Brian McLaughlin (D-Flushing), the head of the city's Central Labor Council, said Tuesday.

"It's now a race to the bottom, to the lowest possible standards," said McLaughlin, whose group represents more than 1 million workers in 400 union locals in both the public and private sectors.

Should the transit workers get a 3 percent wage increase, that would amount to $3 daily in additional take-home pay, he said."With gas prices rising and the cost of living rising, that's a cup of mocha grande at Starbucks at the end of the day," McLaughlin said.

In an act of solidarity, Patrick Lynch, the president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, walked the transit picket line in Queens Tuesday with his father, Robert, a retired subway motorman who went on strike in 1966 and 1980.

"My father was not a criminal in 1966. He was not a criminal in 1980," Lynch told cheering members of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union at a rally Monday night.

Lynch said police officers sympathized, even if the transit workers were about to violate the no-strike provision of the Taylor Law.

"Their hearts are on this side with you," Lynch told the crowd.