15, the Transit Union has dared to threaten a strike. More 
than 7.7 million daily MTA subway and bus riders would be fucked.While fares continue to escalate (increases in 2008, 2009, 2010, with the next in 2012) as service diminishes (for one, construction of the Second Avenue line is already a year behind schedule) amid a budget shortfall of $400 million, the union's 33,000 members have the audacity to ask for 8% annual raises over three years, while paying nothing for health insurance, garnering millions in overtime pay and resting easy with a pension plan straight from the 1950s.
MTA is being ridiculously generous in the midst of the Second Great Depression by offering any raises, much less an absurd proposed 6% raise spread over 27 months. Union workers are also bitching that
their jobs—which they're damn lucky to have—have grown more hazardous following post 9/11 events. Uh, like what?Mind you, more than 8,000 MTA workers make more than $100,000 a year, including conductors, police officers and engineers, many of whom pulled in six figures in overtime and retirement benefits alone.
MTA last went on strike in 2005, bringing the city to a grinding halt for three days.
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