All A-Bored
The MTA’s mechanics aren’t the striking janitors of 2000
But the biggest difference, by far, is in planning. The janitors’ Service Employees International Union Local 1877 didn’t just luck into public respect. They worked for it, unseen, for a decade, and had the capstone of their effort — the three-week strike — so carefully choreographed that in the end it seemed there was no way they could lose. Their campaign had the pacing of a carefully crafted feel-good movie. They had identified and cultivated leaders, plotted strategies on maps and databases, picked just the right time — Easter, with the Democratic National Convention looming — to appeal to the public conscience. They had their elected officials trained. They even picked out a color scheme.
MTA drivers went out on strike that same year — but couldn’t deliver their message to the public and came back with almost nothing. Now, with grocery workers also striking over threatened cuts to their health benefits, MTA workers have been handed a golden opportunity to organize a consistent and coherent message. The residue of public good will is there, evident in empty parking lots at supermarkets and the occasional honk from a passing motorist. But there has been no coordinated campaign among MTA and grocery workers. No citywide maps of alternative stores for buying groceries, no appeals to bus riders or the taxpayers to stand up for employer-paid health care. No theater, just theatrics. Just Neil Silver. And Zev Yaroslavsky.
The janitors quietly sewed up a new five-year contract earlier this year. The same union is planning a December 10 march in its campaign to organize security officers who work in office towers. It’s a good bet that it will be a march worth watching. The mechanics and the MTA, meanwhile, may still be deadlocked.
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