woooweeee am i glad the strike is over. here are my conflicting and VERY BORING opinions on the whole thing:
on one hand, it was nice to see that organized labor still had some force in the U.S. Cutbacks in workers' benefits coupled with (ridiculously) rising health costs is a huge problem for a lot of non-rich people, and that definitely needs addressing. however, it's not really the employers' fault if medical costs are rising so rapidly. and they can't control the fact that life expectancy has also risen so much. i think the big pharmas and healthcare industry should be the ones to dole out some side payments here to ease the burden on the ones who are hurting from their profiteering.
anyways, i think the lessons here to be learned are:
1. unions can suck when their leaders are stuck on an ideological mission that blind their judgment of what's fair.
2. life expectancy rising = retirement age has the right to rise as well. 62 is NOT a ridiculous age to retire.
3. someone has to tackle the issue of healthcare costs rising as if they were the cost of brownstones on prospect place.
4. mta workers get paid SO much more than i do. i am quitting my job and becoming a train conductor, like i've always wanted to do!
