22 December 2005
Public Service Strikes
The transit strike in New York, which started on 20 December 2005, highlights the evolution of labor relations in the capitalist American system. The leader of the Transit Workers’ Union, Mr. Roger Toussaint, is himself the product of a pre-capitalist economy, Trinidad. The government there was the largest employer there at the time he moved to New York (and may still be). Public policy in that sort of economy makes it a major objective of the public sector to provide employment for people so that they can afford to live in society on a standard comparable to all its other citizens.
In an entrepreneurial system like the U.S., every person must devote his life to competing for a living by means of various options for employment—private sector and public sector, production or service positions, ownership or contractual status. At least theoretically, each employee is an independent agent to whom no one owes a job. Therefore, transport workers are assumed to have chosen to work for the bus and subway line, knowing in advance the terms of that employment, the conditions of the workplace, and the features of its retirement program.
Apparently, Mr. Toussaint never accepted this distinction; the TWU obsequiously followed his lead by striking against the Metropolitan Transit Authority, equating their employment contract terms to the need of other New York worker/entrepreneurs for public transportation to their places of work. Perhaps the possible settlement of the strike announced on 22 December indicates his belated realization that he is no longer in Trinidad.
The transit strike in New York, which started on 20 December 2005, highlights the evolution of labor relations in the capitalist American system. The leader of the Transit Workers’ Union, Mr. Roger Toussaint, is himself the product of a pre-capitalist economy, Trinidad. The government there was the largest employer there at the time he moved to New York (and may still be). Public policy in that sort of economy makes it a major objective of the public sector to provide employment for people so that they can afford to live in society on a standard comparable to all its other citizens.
In an entrepreneurial system like the U.S., every person must devote his life to competing for a living by means of various options for employment—private sector and public sector, production or service positions, ownership or contractual status. At least theoretically, each employee is an independent agent to whom no one owes a job. Therefore, transport workers are assumed to have chosen to work for the bus and subway line, knowing in advance the terms of that employment, the conditions of the workplace, and the features of its retirement program.
Apparently, Mr. Toussaint never accepted this distinction; the TWU obsequiously followed his lead by striking against the Metropolitan Transit Authority, equating their employment contract terms to the need of other New York worker/entrepreneurs for public transportation to their places of work. Perhaps the possible settlement of the strike announced on 22 December indicates his belated realization that he is no longer in Trinidad.
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