It feels like Sunday in New York

When I woke up and turned on the news this morning and learned that the TWU workers ended up striking last night at 3am, I was secretly jumping for joy. That is until I remembered that I failed to bring home my laptop last night. Hello long walk downtown. But as I emerged from my apartment on 9th Avenue, the street looked strange. I expected masses of people to be flooding up, down and crosstown. Yet, there were only a few lone pedestrians braving the cold and summing up the energy to make it to work just 5 days before Christmas. It really was like a Sunday morning in New York.... that is until I reached the parking lot that was the northbound West Side Highway.

60 minutes of a frigid walk gave me some time to ponder the strike itself. There are three pretty big sticking points:

1) TWU workers want a pay increase of 8% a year - WHAT? I don't even get an 8% increase a year and I have a master's degree!

2) The MTA wants the TWU workers to start contributing to healthcare - With the way healthcare costs are rising, EVERYONE has to contribute these days so I say suck it up.

3) The MTA wants to increase the retirement age from 55 to 62 - Hello, no one retires at 55 anymore - People live longer these days, get married later, have children later and have access to incredible preventative medicine. Case in point - my dad just retired at 67 and he gets healthier by the day!

And to note, points 2 and 3 are for NEW TWU workers - not the ones who are striking today. So they are losing their pay (and being fined for that matter) for folks who don't even work for the MTA yet. Silly? No, downright stupid.

But more than the inane demands set forth by the union, my problems lie with the fact that these workers provide a vital service to the function of the city. They are shutting down critical routes, putting first responders at risk of not being the first responders, depleting the city of something like $100 million a day in lost revenues and much more. What about the little old lady who has home-care and whose nurse cannot make it in to feed her? What about a fire that cannot be reached by firetrucks due to congestion on every street and avenue? And worse, what if people actually had to get out of the city quickly? It would be forced anarchy.

So, for today, I'm content to be sitting in a half-empty office. But I hope, for the sake of everyone else, that the strike is short and life soon goes back to normal.

And we all have a very Merry Christmas :)