The folk wisdom of labor.

One day all the different body parts started arguing amongst themselves about which of them was the greatest/strongest/most important part of the body...

“I am” said the brain....

“No, I am” said the eyes....

“You’re both wrong, *I* am the most important,” said the ears...

“No, it’s me,” said the heart...

The stomach, lungs, and knees also joined the argument, each arguing why it was the most important body part...

The argument grew quite raucous, as not one body part was willing to concede its importance to another...

Finally the anus, who hadn’t joined the argument and growing weary of the racket, decided to stop working...

Soon the brain started aching, the eyes grew blurry, the ears started ringing, the heart started racing, the lungs grew weak, the stomach grew queasy, and the knees gave way...

So they finally all agreed — the asshole was the greatest/strongest/most important part of the body...

Point here being, as much of an afterthought transit workers may have been before the strike, they obviously have a great impact on the day to day operation of the city. Nobody thought much of transit workers before the strike but, when they weren’t there doing their job all the other parts of the city had a rough go of it.

Yes, I sided with labor during the last month’s transit strike, even after spending the better part of the day schlepping around Manhattan as evidenced by my travels:

GCT to 34 & 3rd
34th & 3rd to Herald Square
PATH to 9th Street
9th & 6th to Mercer & Spring
Mercer and Spring to Union Square
Union Square to 23rd & Madison
23rd & Madison to 29th & Park
29th & Park to GCT

Needless to say, the load got heavier as the day progressed but, even so I couldn’t find it in myself to curse the transit workers. You’ll remember most of the media outlets ran stories on the strike by pasting the word ILLEGAL in very large letters every time they showed a story on TV, mentioned it in the radio or ran it in the paper. Wow. I guess they want us to think these guys are crooks! They are stealing from us somehow. How dare they! What unmitigated gall they have!

Let us not forget the people they’re bargaining with:

Knew well in advance the contract would be ending in December.

Raised fares two years ago crying poverty when in fact they had a surplus.

There has been quite a bit of discussion about last month’s transit strike. I read a story about a potential contract near to being ratified and most of the discussion centered around whether or not the transit workers in fact helped or hurt their cause by going out on strike. A lot of the stories center around the bad publicity for the workers and the very little they did manage to gain from the proposed deal.

Then again, Metro North employees haven’t gone on strike and they’ve been without a contract now for three years, so what does that say about good faith negotiations and the MTA?

Are we watching the dismantling of every gain won by the labor movement over the last century?

Maybe.

I heard a lot of griping by people during the strike, griping about things like pensions, medical benefits and retirement at 55.

Damn those uppitty transit workers, damn them for expecting to get a pension! It wasn’t too long ago that a pension was something of the norm somehow this benefit has become a means to villify workers.

I’m trying to figure out the logic of a world where a company like Enron can use the deregulation of electric power supply to cause blackouts and drive up the price of energy artificially, a country where our government can say there is wisdom in pumping over 18 billion dollars into a foreign country in an effort to build a democracy but, can’t find the money to educate its own.

War on terror? I’ll tell you what, as many people who were physically hurt by the events of September 11th are so small in number as to not even compare to the number of people who will be harmed by the dismantling of the social safety net of benefits in this country.

Maybe instead of damning the transit workers for the benefits they get, we should be asking ourselves why we’re all of us not getting the very same benefits - it used to be the norm not the exception. It’s an issue we all should pay closer attention to especially in light of recent discussions about the privitization of Social Security.