Re: NYC Transit Strike Midst Cold Weather and Christmas

Roger Toussaint, President of TWU Local 100, responded to Mayor

Bloomberg, who had made remarks essentially the same as those above.

He said, "There is a higher calling than the law and that's justice and equality. Had Rosa Parks answered the call of the law instead of the higher call of justice, many of us who are driving buses today would still be in the back of the bus."

In other words, there are times we MUST pick and choose what laws we will obey.

During WW II, the Federal Government ordered changes in qualifications for transit workers in response to a labor shortage. The existing transit motormen, conductors, and bus drivers vehmently disliked this change and went out on strike to protest. This was particularly paralyzing because during the war few people could drive and Phila was a vital war production center. It was necessary for the government to call out the Army and post men on every trolley.

I presume you and Toussaint would've called this strike "a higher call to justice", right? Certainly the men who went out on strike at that time felt so.

[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I can tell you that I have no love lost for unions; some of them have virtually ruined American industry. But here, I am in a quandry; I do not have any love lost for American government either, and particularly things like the obnoxious Taylor Act. But, when the government insists on getting into areas where it has no business being, such as (originally) privately owned transpor- tation systems or schools or real estate, then IMO the government has to stand in line and take its chances like anyone else where labor forces and labor pools are concerned. PAT]
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