Twenty-five years ago this week, a strike by 33,000 transit workers shut down much of New York City and tested the resourcefulness, patience and sanity of more than 3 million subway and bus riders. þþNo commemoration of the strike has been planned, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which faces a round of labor negotiations in December, would probably prefer that it be long forgotten. But the 11-day walkout - the second of only two general strikes in the subway system's history - remains an indelible memory for New Yorkers who lived through it.þþThe strike represented the last major effort by New York workers to challenge the fiscal austerity that had taken hold after the city nearly went bankrupt in 1975, according to Joshua B. Freeman, a labor historian at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.þþThe strike began early on the morning of April 1, 1980, after the board of the city's major transit union rejected management's offer of a 6 percent wage increase in each of the next two years. ÿThere was a pent-up feeling on the part of the transit workers, who, because of the fiscal stringencies of the 70's, hadn't had a wage increase in a long time,ÿ said Richard Ravitch, the authority's chairman at the time.þþThe walkout was orderly, but shutting down the country's largest mass transit system, even temporarily, involved complex coordination. þþPolice officers roped and chained turnstiles and stairways at 458 subway stations with 2,000 entrances. Bus drivers, train operators and conductors were ordered to complete their runs and park their buses and trains in depots. þþEdward I. Koch, who was mayor at the time, said the strike was terrifying at first. ÿWe were scared to death,ÿ he said in an interview on Friday. ÿRemember, I had no experience with a strike. I had been in office two years.ÿþþBut Mr. Koch said he was determined not to repeat the experience of John V. Lindsay, who had endured a 13-day transit strike that began the day he took office in 1966. Mr. Lindsay had urged workers to stay home unless they considered themselves ÿessential.ÿ þþBy contrast, Mr. Koch ordered all city employees to work and famously stood on the Brooklyn Bridge, cheering on commuters walking across it.þþÿI thought: There are the municipal workers coming to save the city,ÿ he wrote in ÿMayor,ÿ his 1984 autobiography. ÿIt was like the Russian Army coming over frozen Lake Ladoga to save Leningrad.ÿþþDuring rush hours, cars were not permitted in Manhattan south of 96th Street without at least one passenger. Drivers lined up at bridge and tunnel entrances and competed with one another to pick up hitchhikers. þþEntrepreneurs saw opportunity in the confusion. The cost of bicycle rentals, taxicab rides, garage spaces and gasoline - even space on a stranger's couch - soared. The city estimated that 500,000 people stayed in hotels or with friends or relatives in Manhattan.þþHotels, restaurants, theaters and taxi drivers thrived. Some commercial banks ferried employees on chartered buses and boats. But manufacturing firms were hit hard, especially those in the garment industry. Hospitals reported an increase in visits from elderly people who had been left unattended because visiting nurses could not get to them. The City University of New York canceled classes at three campuses.þþThe sight of people wearing business suits along with sneakers or jogging shoes became common, as did the practice of carrying a tote bag with a pair of casual footwear.þþIn the end, the strike was estimated to have cost $75 million to $100 million in lost income for workers and companies - and $3 million a day in overtime and lost taxes for the city.þþThe strike resulted from bitter dissent within the union, Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union of America. Many members believed that the union's president, John E. Lawe, had not stood up to the city in previous negotiations. ÿWe had had two miserable contracts in a row,ÿ said George McAnanama, who was on the union's executive board at the time and is now an employee of the union.þþMr. Koch and the city's business leaders were equally adamant that Mr. Ravitch not give in to the union's demands, fearful that doing so would set a costly precedent for future municipal contracts. þþIn the end, the authority made a new offer that included a 9 percent wage increase in the first year, an 8 percent increase in the second and a cost-of-living adjustment that helped offset the high inflation at the time. The union had been seeking 15 percent in the first year, and 10 percent in the second. þþBut even after a quarter-century, there is no consensus on whether the strike was necessary. þþÿIt was not the inability of me and the union to agree, it was the external forces - Ed Koch on the one hand and militants in Lawe's union - who prevented a settlement,ÿ Mr. Ravitch said yesterday.þþMr. Koch, for his part, said Mr. Ravitch lost at the bargaining table what defiant commuters - by surviving without the subway for 11 days - had won on the streets. ÿI thought he gave too much, and he did it without telling me,ÿ Mr. Koch said.þþþ
Source: NY Times
