Open letter from TWU’s Toussaint to NYC Mayor Bloomberg

Dec. 21- Yesterday you used your position as Mayor of New York to call us "thuggish"and "selfish." How dare you?

Our children turn on the TV to see the Mayor denouncing their parents as "morally reprehensible." Have you no shame?

As you know better than most, this strike was forced on us by the MTA. You know this because you share much of the blame. It is your provocative rhetoric about what givebacks we transit workers must accept for the next generation of transit -- our children and new immigrants -- that has pushed our members beyond the limits of their patience.

You all but demanded this confrontation, and now you act angry and surprised. You owe all New Yorkers an apology for poisoning the atmosphere around difficult labor negotiations.

You call us “irresponsible.� New York City and New York State have slashed their subsidies for mass transit. Mayors and Governors have created a seemingly permanent Structural Deficit for transit which much be filled by costly borrowing. Wall Street has profited, but Main Street has suffered. But you knew that already from your previous career. Now that the debt-servicing bill has come due, the MTA demands that we pay the price: worse health care and worse pensions.

But what about our conducting an "illegal" strike? What about the law? You are all over the media with high-minded talk about "illegal" behavior, castigating criminals and screaming that no one is above the law. Your hypocrisy knows no bounds. You must hope everyone has forgotten your biography: "Bloomberg on Bloomberg." You boast on Page 59 on how you started your rise to great wealth, great enough to enable you to buy the Mayor's office twice. You set up your office "...all without permission, violating every fire law, building code and union regulation on the books."

I guess illegality is in the eye of the beholder. A confessed lawbreaker has the gall to lecture 34,000 hard working people whose only crime is standing up for their families and for dignity and respect on one of the toughest, most dangerous jobs in New York.

Stop using transit workers as a punching bag to undo decades of pension gains for city workers. Stop demonizing transit workers in the eyes of the public.

Stop bullying and start acting like the Mayor you promised to be.

Original at www.twulocal100.org