Transit union leader Roger Toussaint reports to the Tombs this afternoon to being serving his 10-day sentence for leading the three-day strike against the MTA in December in violation of the state's Taylor Law. The News prints an exclusive! interview with Toussaint today, conducted on the eve of his incarceration, in which he talks about what a challenge this will be, especially for his family.
Yeah, the strike was messy and inconvenient and unpleasant, but it least it finally made a deal happen on all those employment issues. What? Oh, right.
Oct. 14: Negotiations start on new contract.
Dec. 16: Old contract expires.
Dec. 20: Systemwide strike begins.
Dec. 22: Strike ends.
Dec. 23: Full MTA service resumes.
Jan. 20: Union membership votes down negotiated deal.
Feb. 10: MTA, TWU announce that no substantive new talks have taken place.
This piece of original photojournalism conveys the intensity of the situation, no?
How much did that transit strike suck? More than I would know but let's pop open any remaining sores you may have on your feet and sand them over with some Morton's saltpaper. Turns out the Transport Workers Union Local 100 fared very well in the final settlement and no amount of bitchin' or fist-shakin' or Craigslist postin' can change it now. When it pains, it roars.
The strike is long done, of course. And now there's even a contract, too. The transit union's executive board approved it last night by a huge margin; the membership is expected to do likewise.
So Bloomberg's been getting crap for saying during the transit strike that union leaders were behaving "thuggishly." But perhaps no more. Reports today's Newsday:
• We're glad the strike is over for myriad reasons, not the least of which is sparing us from thoughtless, insipid articles about how poorly we dressed just to stay warm. We're sure it was easy to pen crap like that from the comfort of your town car — did Daddy get you that job at the Styles desk? [NYT]
• Nothing a little anal bleaching can't fix. [CNN]
• The only difference we can think of between chick-flick staples Dermot Mulroney and Dylan McDermott is that we see one of them on the street all the time. The, uh, Irish one with the dark hair. [Fametracker]
• Of the five finalists for Jersey's new state slogan, "Love at First Sight" strikes us as the most misleading. [WCBS]
• Brangelina are rumored to have purchased Yves St. Laurent's $25 million Normandy coast summer home, where they will have wild, French animal sex. [The Daily]
• We're sorry, but a sorority just isn't a sorority if it calls itself "feminist." And sisterhood just isn't sisterhood unless you go down on a SigEp first. [Salon]
Five things we now know:
• The strike's overlooked victims: Those freebie papers you don't really want to read but grab anyway when the dude shoves them at on your way into the subway station. [NYP]
• CBS Evening News will — finally — be No. 2 within a few months, and Katie Couric will eventually be its next anchor, outgoing EP Jim Murphy predicts. [Phil. Inquirer]
• Now Al Sharpton says he won't do the proposed Al in the Family sitcom. This sort of breaks our heart, not least because we spend all that time a few weeks ago Photoshopping his head onto Carroll O'Connor's body. [AP via USAT]
Yesterday we pointed out a bizarrely stupid request from some lunatic proposing that people meet him on the corner of 42nd and 7th today at 12:30 for some good, clean sumo wrestling. We should've known that in a town where there's more fuckwits that there are cockroaches, someone would take this guy up on his offer.
Can't understand how the transit workers and the MTA could finally break through their impasse and come to a deal on a new contract? Someone on Craigslist has the answer, naturally:
It's the most beautiful NYTimes.com headline we've ever seen.
• While you were limping up and down Broadway and losing digits to hypothermia, rest assured union leader Roger Toussaint was enjoying a leisurely two-hour meal with six cronies at a nice restaurant. Would you be any less livid if we noted the restaurant was in Harlem? Yeah, didn't think so. [Page Six]
• Last year, Lloyd Grove banished Paris Hilton from his column and went on the Today show to tell the world. This year, he's banishing Brad Pitt, but you won't see Lloyd on TV to talk about it — perhaps because he is making a very, very grave mistake. Put down the pipe, G, and get it together. [Lowdown]
• Don't get in a tizzy about OK! editor Sarah Ivens sucking face with ad exec Ben Kennedy — she's been separated from her husband since October. Suck freely, liberated lady! [Gatecrasher]
• Broke-ass Courtney Love is looking to sell the entire song catalogue of her late husband Kurt Cobain and Nirvana. Those of you still mentally stuck in Seattle circa 1993 are no doubt displeased. [Page Six]
• Elton John continues to call Madonna a miserable cow. You'd think legally sanctioned assfucking would mellow him out a bit, but you'd be wrong. [Scoop]
Never before had a Times headline made us quite so happy.
It's day three of the world's most goddamned annoying strike on earth, and everyone's beyond exhausted. Not content to let the Red Cross be the sole purveyor of goodwill, the fine folks at Craigslist (your Official Source for Fucked-Up Transit Strike Information©) are doing their part:
With no fewer than 10 reporters on just one strike story today, the mind can't even fathom how many will be necessary for tomorrow's coverage. If only for the sake of the Metro desk, please, Roger Toussaint, end this madness now.
• Those News Corp kids sure do know how to throw an incredibly odd Christmas party. Weirdness aside, things were moments of normalcy: after the picture at right was taken, she ended up in the broom closet with dude dressed like a giant beaver-like thing.
• It was inevitable, really, that LIRR tickets ended up on eBay. Go ahead and collect your little piece of hell! [eBay]
• In the meantime, the TWU and MTA mediators are kinda passing notes back and forth, but it might not last long if the authorities jail union folk. [Gothamist]
• Tomorrow at 12:30, you should probably go meet this freak on a corner and sumo wrestle him. [Craigslist]
• The world's best Christmas list always starts with a request for one-night stands who appear with perfect boners. [NYO]
• How to kill yourself like a man. [The Best Page in the World]
• Maybe we missed something, but how, why and when the hell did the New Yorker make Bill O'Reilly's blacklist? [BillOReilly.com]
• Why Jews secretly love Christmas. [Pdhyman]
• We always knew Oprah was to blame for America's reading crisis. Bitch. [n+1]
• Pac-Manhattan hits the University of Michigan, becomes just reality Pac-Man. So that means this stuff takes approximately two years to trickle towards the Great Lakes. [Boing Boing]
• If you win a prize involving financial support from evil realtor Barbara Corcoran, is it really winning at all? [GMA]
That's what you get for fucking with Grand Central's traffic flow.
On Craigslist, the transit strike has done wonders to showcase the tolerant, progressive side of both TWU supporters...
