TWU Fined $2.5 Million For Its Illegal Strike

And professional grandstander Jesse Jackson was there!

Oh, and about that talk about how this will “cripple the union”:

The rulings by Justice Jones on the $2.5 million fine and the dues checkoff came after days of court argument over detailed financial records, in which union lawyers argued that financial penalties would cripple Local 100. In his comments from the bench, Justice Jones joked more than once that the cascade of financial records and conflicting balance sheet interpretations made the labor dispute seem like the case against the Enron Corporation.

. . .

Terry Meginniss, a lawyer for Local 100, told the court in closing arguments yesterday that the elimination of dues deductions from members’ paychecks was the harshest penalty confronting the union, since it would severely limit its ability to collect money and pay its bills and would force it to cut staff.

But Neil H. Abramson, a lawyer for the transit authority, argued that the union had ample assets to draw on, including its headquarters at 80 West End Avenue in Manhattan, which the union has had appraised at $39 million. Ed Watt, Local 100’s secretary treasurer, testified last week that it had a contract to sell the building for $60 million that was contingent on the buyer obtaining bank financing and that it had received other offers of $40 million.

In other words, they’re denying us the joy of seeing them go bankrupt . . .

Battle Lines Drawn, Landlords Flexing Collective Muscle; Tenants Seen As The Enemy

New York Magazine reports on how city landlords are quietly coming together to educate themselves on how to better evict tenants:

A recent seminar, sponsored by a landlord group cutely called Community Housing Improvement Program, brought together Manhattan moguls and mom-and-pops who may own a building or two in the outer-outer-boroughs to get a primer on putting their problem tenants out on the street. After paying $50 and making small talk over muffins and coffee one morning in the chandeliered conference room of the New York County Lawyers’ Association on Vesey Street, the sold-out crowd of 225 settled in to listen to the lawyers.

. . .

Attorney William Neville recommended getting friendly with the postman to see whose name is on the mail and subpoenaing ATM records to see where the tenant banks. His biggest thrill? “Showing that [tenants] are lying.” Lawyer Lauren Popper said that it’s sometimes worth hiring a P.I.: Her favorite gumshoe once posed as a patient to catch a psychiatrist using his rent-stabilized apartment as an office while living elsewhere. Ultimately, they were steeled by the possibility of a jackpot—the flip side of the no-account-tenant horror stories. Belkin bragged that he might be able to get $10,000 a month for an apartment he recently wrestled out of rent control. The previous rent? Three hundred dollars. A ripple of excitement went through the audience.

Damn Con Ed

Our national nightmare — power in several Staten Island neighborhoods went out just before Sunday’s Super Bowl:

If you’ve never seen 25 people huddled around a 9-inch TV set hooked up to a car battery, you should have been in Grant City last night when the lights went out.

Sure, you might have preferred to be watching the Super Bowl on the 51-inch high-definition TV that was also sitting the living room.

But the Weigele family, and their guests, had to make do with the makeshift when the power failed in several Mid-Island neighborhoods just minutes before the kickoff.

“Right now, we’re rooting for Con Ed more than anybody,” cracked Paul Weigele, as two dozen friends and relatives hooted and cheered in front of the tiny backup TV in his Prescott Avenue home.

About 1,400 households lost power after some feeder cables failed, according to Con Ed. The lights went back on just before half-time.

No Ticket Quotas, Eh?

After reporting on a questionable shopping-bag-on-seat infraction, the Post notes that the City plans to boost its general fund by hiring more revenue-producing traffic agents:

So there are no ticket quotas, huh?

The NYPD disclosed plans yesterday to hire 117 new traffic agents who are supposed to bring in $17.4 million for the city’s $55.5 billion budget for fiscal year 2007, which starts July 1.

Cops are also going to step up towing activity to generate another $3.7 million.

“This is not good news for New Yorkers, in light of recent revelations about so-called ‘performance measures,'” said City Councilman John Liu, who chairs the Transportation Committee. “This is not going to sit well with New Yorkers. We are looking at this issue very carefully.”

The NYPD defended the plan.

“That’s hardly a blitz,” said NYPD spokesman Paul Browne, “considering the fact that the number of tickets issued in the city declined to 9.2 million in [fiscal year] 2005, compared to 9.7 million the year before.”

There are now 2,600 traffic agents. The added troops are expected to write an additional 412,000 tickets.

Peace Is Never Dead Because People Want Peace

And here we go again. The MTA puts out their first post-rejection offer, one that is worse than what was agreed to following the strike:

Some labor experts said the authority’s move was intended to pressure union leaders to accept binding arbitration — but was likely to heighten labor unrest.

The authority’s new offer keeps the provision that union members disliked most, a requirement that workers begin contributing 1.5 percent of their wages toward health-insurance premiums, and revives a proposal that had been taken off the table, that new workers contribute more to their pensions than current workers. It also includes provisions dropped early in the negotiations, like the expansion of one-person train operation.

In addition, the authority’s new offer eliminates a provision that delighted many workers — a pension refund that would give thousands of dollars to about 20,000 union members who made overpayments from 1994 to 2001.

The offer added yet another surprise chapter to a labor epic that led to failed negotiations in December, a 60-hour strike, a hard-wrought agreement that ended the walkout, and then, finally, the general membership’s rejecting the overall contract settlement by just 7 votes.

While making its new, tougher offer, the transportation authority took steps to move the dispute to binding arbitration.

While some experts said the offer increased the possibility of another strike, others described it as a tactical move devised to show dissidents that the deal rejected last week was fair. Despite the request for arbitration, both sides could still come together to reach a new deal. A spokesman for Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union said last night that the union’s leaders were studying the authority’s new proposal and were not ready to comment.