NY transit strike - Assignment Example

NY transit strike Why were union members unhappy with their prior contact from 2002? The union members had three unfulfilled demands from the 2002 contract. These demands were in the areas of: retirement, pension and wage all of which were to be increased by a certain percentage but that did not happen. In the wage and salary increase for example, the agreed terms were for the workers to have a 6% increase every year since 2002. The paid increase was 3%, 4% and 3.5% for the three years consecutively which was way lower than the agreement in the contract (Books Llc, 35).

What was the status of the MTA budget in 2005?According to MTA, they had a surplus of $ 1 billion in that year. The truth however was that the company was slowly going into debt and they kept on borrowing money to reimburse capital plans and the taxes they were paying for real estate were all time high due to the boom hence sinking them again in the debt hole. This was probably the reason why they would not meet the demands of their union workers (who thought that the company was intentionally refusing to pay them whereas they had budget surplus) and they hid the looming debt crisis from the union leaders.

Was it in the "red" or in the "black?In the real sense, the budget was in the “red” as the company had debts it could not service and which were threatening to bring the company down. The face portrayed by the company to the workers and the rest of the citizens was that it was in the “black” with a high budget surplus. This was misleading and accelerated the strike.Work CitedBooks Llc. Rail Transport Strikes: Winter of Discontent, 2005 New York City Transit Strike, Great Railroad Strike of 1877, and 2006 Youth Protests in France.

Tennessee: General Books LLC, 2010.