[via wcbstv.com - City Employee Residency Requirement Nixed]:

(CBS) NEW YORK The city's largest employees union confirmed Thursday afternoon that it had reached a historic agreement with Mayor Michael Bloomberg that, among other things, eliminates the requirement that city employees live in one of the five burroughs.

District Council 37 announced the agreement to terminate the residency requirement on its Web site, and a union official confirmed the information to CBS2. D.C. 37 endorsed Bloomberg early on in his most recent re-election campaign. The mayor's office has not yet commented.

The residency requirement has been in place for decades.

Other city employees unions are still working to reach agreements with the city.

Manhattanites are screwed. This is going to hit us worse than any of the other boroughs. From now on, only rich people will be allowed to live in NYC, especially Manhattan.

I take this as a stab in the back to the non-unionized working class in the city. Instead of fighting for affordable housing, they take the exurban way out; taking with them millions of dollars in taxes as well.

The reactions to the transit strike are, so far, falling along very predictable lines. The Daily News is calling for union leaders to be jailed and the TWU to be fined into bankruptcy. The New York Post does some big-picture editorializing about public-sector pensions in general. The Drum Major Institute points the finger at the governor. The New York Times, as always, takes a more Olympian view of current events by tracing the historical development of the TWU and its impact on the decision to strike. The prickly pachyderms over at Urban Elephants, meanwhile, wax lyrical about the rule of law.

New Yorkers, as a rule, are friendly towards unions and the general idea behind them: that employees have the right to bargain with their employers collectively. At the same time, we get very irritated indeed if our routines are adversely affected over a period of time for reasons we do not see as justified. This strike, coming as it does in bone-chilling cold and the height of the holiday shopping season, will require that the union aggressively communicate its goals and grievances, or risk a rapid loss of support from the affected public. The MTA, as seems clear especially from the hostile editorial in the Daily News, is portraying itself as a victim of extortion. Both sides are presenting the contract offer of the other as unreasonable.

On the face of it, the MTA's offer does not seem all too ungenerous, since it contains a total pay raise over three years of 10.5%, which does seem slightly more realistic than the union's initial demand of an 8% raise in each of three years. The real sticking points for the union, however, are buried further down in the contract, with the MTA's demands that these raises be conditional on new contributions to pension plans and health care costs, which would essentially amount to a pay freeze. That, in turn, does not look generous at all.

One thing seems clear: the patience of the riding public, given the temperatures, will be exhausted quickly. If we come to believe that our pain is being used as a bargaining chip by either side, there will be a fast and furious backlash. Both the TWU and the MTA will need to resist any desire to posture; but given the personalities of both Roger Toussaint and Peter Kalikow, it seems only a matter of time before one or the other makes a horrendous gaffe and sees his support vanish.

Who will it be? Stay tuned.

New York City area commuters are all too familiar with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's disrespect for its riders: the MTA hid its budget surpluses to justify a fare increase and, in a time of growing concern about security, has reduced the presence of knowledgeable personnel in trains, stations, and elevators.

Likewise, taxpayers throughout New York State are acquainted with the MTA's lack of consideration for the public's money as the MTA tried to sell publicly-owned real estate it controls for hundreds of millions less than its true value.

Now we see that the MTA has no more regard for its employees than it does for riders or taxpayers. Members of the Transport Workers Union, whose last contract was negotiated in the depths of recession, have asked for things like negotiable wage increases, more reasonable leave policies, and the right to take bathroom breaks without receiving a citation.

But the MTA has been intransigent. Knowing its employees would face tremendous penalties if they were to exercise their most effective bargaining tool and refuse to continue working, it has demanded concessions on pension and health benefits and refused to budge.

But part of this picture is missing. The MTA is a state public authority, primarily controlled by NY Governor George Pataki. Governor Pataki starved the MTA's budget, appointed real estate developer/GOP donor Peter Kalikow to head the MTA and selected the majority of the board that runs the Authority.

Yet Governor Pataki gets let off the hook. We let him dodge accountability, and say: "This is not something where politicians at the last minute ride in on a white horse." That's an unacceptable response from the man who has been the official ultimately in charge of the MTA for the last ten years.

If the MTA continues to stonewall its employees and we all find ourselves unable to get to work one morning -- an outcome that looks likely at this moment of "partial strikes" -- Governor Pataki is the one to call with our complaints.

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