Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2005 11:47:08 -0500
From: Ted White <twhite8 at cox.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Odd events
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

ronkean at juno.com wrote:

>  On Tue, 20 Dec 2005 23:33:28 -0500 "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com>
>  writes:
>
> > At 12/20/2005 11:24 PM, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> >
> >> I hope the city government takes the opportunity to do the same
> >
> > thing
> >
> >> that Reagan did with the air traffic controllers: Fire all the
> >> illegal strikers, and replace them with people willing to work
> >> for wages closer to what most of their passengers earn.
> >
> > Close...they are being fined $1,000,000.00/day for being on an
> > illegal strike.
>
>  The union is being fined $1M per day, which works out to about $30
>  per day per worker. But the union itself would have to pay that
>  fine, if upheld, not the workers directly. Individual workers face a
>  different, and much higher fine. Illegally striking workers would be
>  fined two days' pay for each day on strike.
>
>  I think these fines are mostly for show, and in the end will not
>  really be imposed, when a settlement is made. If the strike goes on
>  for very long, more than a week or so, it will be practically
>  impossible to collect the fines in full. I think the last such
>  strike, in 1980, lasted 11 days.

It did -- and I was working in NYC (editing HEAVY METAL) at the time.
Fortunately, my east 72nd St apartment was walking distance from my
office on Madison Avenue, but those 11 days were still a drag.

I was living in NYC during at least one previous strike, in the '60s.
Then I had my own car there and could get around.

--Ted White