NYC Union: 'We Are Not Thugs'

Transit workers who walked off the job and shut down New York's subway and bus system came under withering pressure Wednesday to end their strike, facing penalties that could include jail time for union leaders and fines for the rank and file.

With a judge and lawyers raising the stakes against the union, Transport Workers Union Local 100 President Roger Toussaint signaled that the union would be willing to resume negotiations and possibly go back to work without a contract if the transit agency took its current pension proposal off the table. The union says the pension proposal is woefully inadequate.

Across the country, pensions are being scaled back, reports CBS News correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority wanted to do the same thing – push the retirement age to 62 from 55 and have future employees contribute 6 percent instead of 2 percent to their pensions.

The union called the offer insulting, but Nicole Gelinas of the Manhattan Institute says she thinks most Americans would disagree.

"They'd love to be similarly insulted," Gelinas told Alfonsi.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the strike "needs to end, and it needs to end right now," and questioned how union leaders could claim the walkout was done to benefit the city's working class when the strike is doing so much economic harm to New York.

Bloomberg and Toussaint exchanged their harsh words at separate news conferences as several legal issues related to the strike came before a judge.

State Supreme Court Justice Theodore Jones ordered Toussaint and two of his deputies brought before him Thursday morning to face criminal contempt charges for ordering the walkout.

New York's attorney general has asked that the officials be fined, but Jones suggested it was also a "distinct possibility" he could send one or more to jail for defying a court order barring the strike.

State-supervised mediation talks were under way Wednesday between union officials and the MTA, and Jones said he was hopeful there might be a breakthrough overnight. The judge has already imposed a $1 million-per-day fine on the union — a punishment that would not take effect until appeals are complete.

Union lawyer Arthur Schwartz warned that hauling Toussaint into court would halt the talks, and could make a settlement more difficult.

In perhaps an even tougher measure, lawyers for the city began a separate legal proceeding Wednesday that could eventually lead to rank-and-file union members being hauled into court to face charges of civil contempt.

Michael A. Cardozo, New York City's corporation counsel, asked the judge to issue a second order directing union members to return to work. If such an order was ignored, Cardozo said the city could ask for heavy fines per worker — a punishment that goes beyond the docked-pay penalty that workers already are experiencing for the illegal strike.

The fines would be at the discretion of the judge, could range from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand, and would come out of the workers' own pockets, rather than union coffers.

"We're doing everything possible to make the union obey the law," the judge said, adding that union members need to "realize the economic consequences of their actions."

In preparation for such an action, the city was making plans to serve legal papers on striking workers whenever they might be found, including picket lines and at their homes.

As the dispute played out in court and in the negotiating room, millions of New Yorkers trudged to work in another bone-chilling commute without subways and buses.

Bloomberg said the strike was taking a serious toll on the local economy — responsible for a 40 percent decline in business at restaurants and an 80 percent decline in visitors at museums.

"Working people are the ones who are being hurt," Bloomberg said. "The busboy is getting hurt, the garment industry worker is getting hurt, the owners of mom and pop businesses ... The ones getting hurt the most are the ones who can least afford it. If they don't get paid, they don't eat."

Bloomberg, who isn't directly involved in the strike talks, added, though, that he didn't think jail was appropriate.

"I would urge the judge not to put them in jail but to raise the fines," Bloomberg said. "The fines are what is going to hurt, fines don't make you a martyr and fines you don't get back.

Toussaint said he took issue with Bloomberg's earlier remarks that the union "thuggishly" turned its back on New York. He called the language "undignified and unbecoming."

"We are not thugs,'' Toussaint said. "We wake up at 3 and 4 in the morning to move the trains in this town. That's not the behavior of thugs and selfish people."

On the first day of winter, New Yorkers were out before sunrise, hoping to avoid the long lines and crushing crowds that formed at commuter rail stations during rush hour Tuesday. Outside Penn Station, several taxis had lined up by 7 a.m. to pick up passengers hoping to beat the rush.

"A nightmare, disorganized, especially going home," Aleksandra Radakovic said Wednesday in describing her morning commute.

Some of the strikers got an early start Wednesday, donning union placards and returning to their picket lines. Bill McRae, a bus driver since 1985, said he thought negotiations should have continued — but he still backed the walkout.

"The union executives called for a strike, and we have to do what we have to do," McRae said on Manhattan's West Side.

Transit officials said about 1,000 transit workers came to work Tuesday, and that they were put to work cleaning and doing paperwork. Toussaint adamantly denied that so many people had crossed the picket line.

Police say there have been no strike-related crimes, injuries or arrests with the exception of two minor incidents.

Isaac Flores, who works at a law firm in midtown, was part of a complicated, four-person car pool to get to work Wednesday morning. "They're too spoiled," Flores said of the transit workers. "They want to retire at age 55. They're making more money than a cop."

Flores traveled in a car pool with Myra Sanoguet, who saw a group of pickets in upper Manhattan as their car drove past.

"We were thinking about running them over just now," Sanoguet said.