Sir, Step Away From The Rat

The rat — that sweet inflatable rat you see in front of union wrath-incurring job sites — may not be around much longer after the National Labor Relations Board ruling that deemed it confrontational and beyond the pale of normal free speech:

The inflatable rubber rat, bucktoothed bane of strikebreakers and emblem of union wrath, may be headed for retirement. The National Labor Relations Board is now considering a case that could make it harder to employ one on a picket line.

At issue in the case is whether the rat is the equivalent of picketing, which can be restricted under federal law, or a form of free speech, which enjoys far fewer limitations. The case, which was filed three years ago, is slowly percolating through the system, but the labor board is poised to make a ruling. If it decides the rat is, indeed, a form of picketing, it could have a chilling effect on its use.

“It’s going to inhibit the rat,” said Alvin Blyer, the director of the Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island region of the board. The board’s national office will eventually rule on the case.

For those unfamiliar with the rat, consider this description provided in a ruling by Steven Davis, an administrative law judge for the board who heard the case in his Brooklyn court in March:

“The rat presents an imposing figure,” the ruling says. “The rats here were 15 or 30 feet high. The body of the rat is gray with pink eyes, ears and nose. Its sits on its haunches with its front paws outstretched and claws extended. Its mouth is open, baring its teeth.”

. . .

In his 30-page opinion, Judge Davis ruled against the rat.

“The union’s use of the rat,” he wrote, “constituted confrontational conduct intended to persuade third persons not to do business with Concrete [Structures Inc., which filed complaint against the Laborers’ Eastern Region Organizing Fund, the body that puts out the rat].”

He continued: “A rat is a well-known symbol of a labor dispute and is a signal to third persons that there is an invisible picket line they should not cross.”

The union has appealed the judge’s ruling, and its lawyer, Lowell Peterson, said he was confident the rat would survive, even if the labor board decides against it.

“Ultimately, I think the rat will be vindicated, if you will,” he said. “Their theory that there’s something magical about the rat is wrong. There’s nothing magical about a rat — it’s just ugly.”

If the rat was banned, the union’s lawyer promised to use a skunk instead.

The rat in question:

What Was That About Again? No, Seriously . . .

The MTA and the Transport Workers Union reached a settlement on a new 37-month contract, striking a deal that — for current transit employees — is in fact worse than what was first offered by the MTA:

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the transit workers’ union announced a settlement yesterday in which the authority abandoned its demand for concessions on pensions and the union agreed to have all workers pay a portion of their health insurance premiums.

Last night the executive board of the union, Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, voted 37 to 4 to approve the tentative 37-month contract. One member abstained. The city’s 33,700 subway and bus workers are expected to vote on the agreement early next month; some are expected to oppose it out of unhappiness over having to pay toward health premiums for the first time.

The agreement calls for transit workers to pay 1.5 percent of their wages toward the premiums, cutting into the raises they receive. That comes on top of the fines of slightly more than $1,000 that most transit workers face for participating in last week’s illegal transit strike.

The new contract includes raises of 3 percent in the first year, 4 percent in the second year and 3.5 percent in the third year . . . in other words, exactly what the MTA offered to the union just before it went out on strike.

And instead of pension contributions for future employees, now all transit workers will contribute money towards their health care premimum. So going out on strike not only cost the average transit worker $1000 but now they will have to pay for health care as well. Smart, smart move.

Transport Workers Union board members were ecstatic:

“These were huge items for our membership,” said Marvin W. Holland, a station cleaner and board member who voted to approve the contract. “If it took a strike to get it, so be it. I think this is an overwhelming success.”

Meanwhile, in an impressive display of moving goalposts, TWU Local 100 President Roger Toussaint apparently decided that all he had to do was outdo Philadelphia transit workers’ recent contract:

One union leader close to the talks said Mr. Toussaint was eager to be able to show his union’s members that he delivered a better contract than the one received by 5,000 Philadelphia transit workers after their one-week strike last month.

The Philadelphia workers received raises of 3 percent a year for three years and their union agreed, for the first time, to have workers pay 1 percent of their wages toward their health premiums.

Mr. Toussaint agreed to higher premiums but he can say he obtained bigger raises than the Philadelphia union received.

It’s admirable to “refuse to sell out the unborn” — the recent police contract that lowered rookie pay to around $25,000 was an egregious example of a union selling out its “unborn” — but I find it very difficult to believe that current transit employees will be happy about actually getting a worse deal by upholding that noble principle. They should vote down the contract. And I would totally understand why.

Principled, Altruistic And Totally Inexplicable

The Daily News reports that the MTA and Transport Workers Union are close to signing a new contract, one that seems worse than what the transit workers would have gotten had they not gone on strike:

Sources said the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Transport Workers Union Local 100 are close to a three-year pact that calls for raises of 3%, 4% and 4% for its 33,700 workers.

The framework of the deal would require all workers to contribute toward health insurance, but would not change the existing pension plan or retirement age, sources said.

While health care costs would rise, retirees would see improved health coverage, sources said.

The local’s executive board has been told to report to its headquarters on West End Ave. today. It must approve any potential pact and call a ratification vote by members.

That framework, if nailed down, allows both sides to address some of their main concerns.

Union leader Roger Toussaint can say he held the line on pensions; he was vehemently opposed to raising the retirement age from 55 to 62, and fought raising pension contributions for new hires.

MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow can point to the workers’ first-ever contribution to health premiums. Transit officials have said pension and health care costs are soaring, and that without workers paying for some of their costs, fares could rise.

By fighting off a pension contribution for new hires in exchange for higher contributions to health care premiums for current employees, the transit workers seem very principled, almost altruistic . . .

I’m not buying it.

We Hear Arizona Is Nice This Time Of Year

A “confused” Upper East Side woman who was unsure what to do with a dead body seems to have wanted to ship her dead husband’s body to Arizona via parcel post. The smell led police to her apartment:

The smell of death led cops yesterday to a ritzy upper East Side building, where a confused 67-year-old woman told them she stuffed her husband’s corpse in a suitcase to ship him to Arizona, police sources said.

“He always wanted to go to Arizona,” Carole Fallon told cops who arrived at her cluttered 11th-floor apartment in the Plaza Tower on E. 60th St., where she lives with her 97-year-old mother, the sources said.

When asked about a foul odor, the women pointed to a suitcase packed with the rotting body of 87-year-old James Fallon, who died about two weeks ago, sources said.

Fallon, who suffered from a heart condition and high blood pressure, used a cane to get around and was in ailing health in recent months, neighbors said.

“I think they were confused,” said William Fallon of Arizona, whose father married his stepmother 30 years ago. “It’s not the way I pictured my father.”

Police believe Fallon, a retired Los Angeles land developer, died of natural causes and the women panicked, cops said.

Carole Fallon and her mom, who both suffer from medical conditions, didn’t appear to believe they did anything wrong, law enforcement sources said.

“They didn’t know what to do. They didn’t know who to call,” a police source told the Daily News. “They figured they could call the post office and they could come and pick it up.”

. . .

Fallon and her mother, who don’t have any relatives in the immediate area, were taken to Bellevue Hospital to be looked after, sources said.

Cops hauled two pricey Louis Vuitton bags out of the 34-story building but it was not immediately clear if they had been used in the bizarre body storage.

The Plaza Tower was once home to famed Broadway performer Ethel Merman.

Here Are My Wings . . . Please Clip Them

This is just to say: I am an impatient, overly aggressive and just plain bad bicyclist, and the best thing about the transit strike ending is that I am off the road.

So in a sort of holiday spirit, I would like to take the opportunity to apologize to several pedestrians whom I scolded or cursed at. (NB: This in no way releases you from what at the time were obvious, inexcusable transgressions — it’s just to admit that my response was perhaps excessive.) Please note the following:

• To the middle-aged woman in the black overcoat at 60th Street and Park Avenue on the morning of December 21, 2005 at whom I yelled “Lady, get out of the way!” — I’m sorry, I really should have just slowed down and allowed you to cross against the light; and being stressed out that morning still does not excuse me from sneering “Hey, Lady” at you.
• To the middle-aged gentleman at 59th Street and Lexington Avenue on the evening of December 21, 2005 — “Get the fuck out of the way!” was perhaps an overly aggressive way to express what I really felt, which was something more along the lines of, “Please take care not to walk directly in front of a long line of bicyclists trying to cross the street, particularly when you are walking against the light.”
• To the group of three pedestrians at 60th Street and Park Avenue on the morning of December 22, 2005 at whom I yelled, “Get out of the way!” — while actually speeding up — I apologize; even though (again) you were crossing the street against the light, in speeding up to almost hit you I was perhaps acting too aggressively.
• Finally, to the near-elderly woman in the black fur coat at 59th Street and Third Avenue on the evening of December 22, 2005 who was crossing against the light — the one at whom I yelled “Lady, get out of the way” and who snapped something indecipherable at me — I am sorry for making the extra effort to turn around while I was almost through the intersection and yelling “fuck you”; yelling “fuck you” is probably never justified, especially when I wasn’t exactly sure what you said, and especially because yelling obscenities at the elderly is rude, unseemly behavior.

That said, I am emphatically unapologetic about flipping off the idiot in the blue minivan who drove right in front of me at 45th Avenue and 23rd Street in Queens. In fact, I would have yelled, too, were it not for the fact that he could not hear me. To you, Sir — Watch out for bicyclists, you stupid moron.