As you all know, The Strike is finally over. Nothing like a labor uprising to shake up your work week! As expected that is ALL we have been hearing about down here for the last three days. It's a relief to have things going back to normal, for a variety of reasons. And it looks like the strike may have paid off somewhat for transit workers, according to this New York Times article:

Despite the end of the strike, a final settlement of the dispute remains to be reached. But officials hinted that in exchange for the union's ending the strike, the authority would significantly scale back or even abandon its insistence on less-generous pensions for future workers. In return, the union would consider having its members pay more for health insurance.

I think most people are paying more for health insurance these days - if they are lucky enough to have it at all. My co-pays are doubling next year. Doubling! So seems like a reasonable trade-off.

I think the most amusing thing about this strike was hearing Pataki blubbering about how the strikers wouldn't be rewarded by breaking the law, and that the strike would have to end before negotiations could resume. "You can't walk and talk," or something like that. Well, I don't think there's a bigger bunch of law breakers than the Pataki-appointed MTA Board - so I guess their reward was keeping their jobs after cooking the MTA books. Republicans are just total gangsters, period. Pataki is such a douchebag. The thought of him as president is stomach-turning.

Overall, this was a thrilling example of ordinary workers standing up and fighting for their rights. Every family member of every striking worker suffered the inconvieniency just as much as every other New Yorker, which has seemed to be overlooked in all of this. I applaud their bravery and conviction. It's nice to see the bigwigs and fatcats be taken head-on, especially in this age of sickening corporate corruption-Kalikow fits right in with that crew.