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I don't know the specifics of thier contract or specific jobs. But I do know about my grandfather that worked for the MTA most of his life.
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Well, the specifics of their contract and their jobs are actually a lot more germane to this situation than your grandfather's job.
From fflaque's link:
(excerpt)
"Consider their pay demands. The transit workers union has insisted on a 24% increase over three years, compared to the 5% over two years the MTA is offering. Union leaders claim they are only asking for pay rates commensurate with their peers in other mass transit networks in the region, like the Long Island Railroad or Metro-North, but all they have succeeded in doing is calling the public's attention to a pay scale that is already generous by the standards of many New Yorkers. A subway-train operator starts at $52,644 a year, more than double the starting salaries of police officers, fire fighters, and trash collectors. Instead of encouraging the public to ask why they should get the "meager" raise the MTA has proposed, the union actually has New Yorkers wondering why their starting salaries are so high even without the raise.
Similar questions are being raised by the fight over work rules. The union is agitated over an MTA proposal to combine the positions of train driver and conductor and to operate some trains without conductors at all. It turns out that such debate only makes New Yorkers wonder why the subway system still needs conductors. Washington's modern Metrorail system relies on computers to run the trains while a single operator makes announcements and opens and closes doors. Even that single operator looks superfluous when compared to the newest line of the Paris Metro, which will be operated entirely by computers.
Again with health care costs. The MTA hasn't even proposed changing the system for current employees; it is willing to continue paying their full premiums under a new contract. In exchange, it would ask new hires to chip in 2% of their wages for health care. While the union portrays this as an unpardonable sin - the president of the Transport Workers Union Local 100, Roger Toussaint, characterizes the MTA position on insurance premiums as "demanding that we give up our unborn" - New Yorkers are left wondering why they have to pay a portion of their own premiums, if they even have health benefits, and also subsidize a generous package for transit workers."(end excerpt)
http://www.nysun.com/article/24530
OK let's see...their starting pay is already more than twice that of firefighters, police, and trash collectors. We can presume that those jobs are at least about as hazardous and difficult as transit working, no? The 5% increase over the next 2 years they will be getting is too little; instead, they demand a 24% increase over 3 years. And for *
new hires only* to begin paying 2% of their health care costs is apparently completely unacceptable to union negotiators.
My take at this point is that these guys are full of crap and that they're not negotiating in good faith or putting forth anything resembling reasonable requests or demands. They appear simply to be putting the screws to the city and all of its inhabitants.
As mentioned before, they knew that it was illegal to strike when they took the jobs. 400 million dollars a day is what their illegal strike is costing the residents of NYC. Maybe they should be sued for 400 million dollars a day, now there's an idea. If they don't like that prospect, they can either go back to work or just quit.
If the union honchos are really being as greedy, unreasonable, and *unconscionable* as it strongly appears, well all I can say is that any "scab" is better than those union leader bastards by about a million miles.
I did see your point in the other post about conditions, pay, etc...but comparing it to the NYFD and NYPD really helps put it in perspective.
If the union guys are going to put the screws to the people of NYC so unmercifully, I think the city should put the screws to them. Hard.