Productivity and demand for labor

The term ‘productivity’ usually refers to labor productivity defined as the amount of output produced in the firm, industry or economy per employee hour. There are other productivity measures however such as capital productivity and total factor productivity. 

An increase in labor productivity means that firms are able to produce each physical unit of output with less labor input. The discussion of the long-run demand for labor provides insight into two of the most important causes of increase in labor productivity. The first is the process of capital/labor substitution that has taken place as wages have risen relative to the costs of capital. The price of capital equipment rose significantly - we acknowledge that the same argument could be beneficial to the blue collar employees’ argument that the prices are rising and to counter that with the cost of living allowance which is reasonable.

We are also in agreement with the concept of holding down production costs as much as possible by substituting from labor to capital in production. What we do not agree to is the ratio of substitution between capital to labor - on that end we need to have the control of that ratio.

For example if the diesel prices skyrocket due to the impending conflict with Iran, then transit agencies will be scrambling for contingency plans.  Experts predict oil can rise up to $200.00 a barrel or as much as $8/Gallon of gas once military action commences. We can imagine the wall street commodity speculators are licking their lips in anticipation. But what will happen if, or when, we escalate to military confrontation with Iran? With Gasoline surging to possibly $8 per gallon, commuters will be driving less... if at all. Car pools will certainly multiply and Mass Transit will be quickly overburdened. We do not want that to be used as precursor for layoffs due to rising price of diesel - we will not agree to that. We will not agree either to the rising price of diesel to be used as a barrier to our demand for a fair contract.

The displacement of labor by technological change

The former CEO Jay H Walder tried to sell the theory of the essence of technological change because it opens up new more efficient ways to produce a product with less labor or capital.

The first impact of technological change then is to reduce the demand for labor, in particular he targeted station agents and booth for removal by installing metro card vending machines with some cameras and the help phone. He used those as what he called them then more advanced labor-saving equipment. Although it may seem counter-intuitive at first technological change is also capital saving in many ways. We are aware of the example that was used then - the railroad industry. Specifically when railroads switched from steam to diesel locomotives the same number of ton miles of freight service could be produced with less capital since diesels required less time for repairs and could operate over much greater distances without refueling. Similarly computers have resulted in substantial savings in capital in the trucking industry since more efficient scheduling permits as well as fewer trucks were needed to haul the same amount of freight.

While technological change frequently reduces both the absolute level of capital and labor needed to produce a particular product the ratio of capital to labor may change if technological change has a factor ‘bias’ - that is if it proportionately reduces the use of one input more than the other.

One factor our former CEO Walder overlooked was that despite the revolution in technology in the 20th century the number of jobs in the economy has not decreased but rather has increased by many millions. How can this be accounted for? He should answer this if he can from Hong Kong, maybe he was a buddy of Mitt Romney in the Bain Capital formula to lay off blue collar employees.

Demand of labor and technological change

Over time the demand for labor is influenced not only by changes in relative factor prices but also by changes in technology. Improvements in the state of technology arise from advances in basic knowledge. For example genetic engineering and improved techniques of production (such as robots, words processors and jumbo jets). There was widespread concern over whether the process of technological change or ‘automation’ would result in rising levels of unemployment in the economy, a concern that has resurfaced today as robots replace auto workers and word processors make the typing pool a thing of the past.

The impact of technological change on employment can be analyzed with the long-run theory of labor demand. Improvements in the state of technology can most often be incorporated into the production process only through the addition of new capital in the form of more modern, up-to-date equipment.

Thus in the short run the employment of our employer is largely unaffected by technological change since by definition the amount of capital is fixed. In the long run however our employer has the opportunity not only to substitute between labor and capital but also to replace older, technologically outdated capital with the most technologically advanced capital. We have seen this first hand in the station department when the former CEO Jay H Walder pushed the metro card vending machines in hopes to eliminate labor.

Memorial Day

(Israel Rivera Jr) led group

It is rumored that Thomas Creegan has assembled his prospective top four running mates for union wide offices in the following manner: Thomas Creegan - president, Ainsley Stewart - secretary treasurer, John Mooney - Administrative vice president, and Evelyn Figeroa as recording secretary. Many have observed that Israel Rivera Jr is the puppeteer behind the scene. 

Many speculated that Israel Rivera Jr (the former secretary treasurer of TWU Local 100 who was removed from office for improper use of membership funds, awarding Ms. Baum a service contract and was excluded from running for office) has never moved on but rather he has dreams to recapture TWU Local 100 through this group. In addition to secure control in the event there is a difference of opinion, discord, division, dispute or disagreement with Thomas Creegan - Israel Rivera Jr will still have some sort of control over this group thru Ms. Evelyn Figeroa. 

It is rumored those old timers - Ainsely Stewart and John Mooney, that their time has passed and maybe this is their last hooray to try to catch the old glory of the days bygone. Maybe those old timers want to make themselves relevant in the upcoming election and do not want to fade away like everyone else and retire. In Mooney’s case maybe he needs two more years to be on a union payroll so he can be able to collect on the TWU Local 100 pension that requires five years of service - he has been at the union hall for three years previously.  Ainsley has lost elections before as recently as in May 2012 in the reelection of delegates to the International (under the supervision of DOL) in which he championed but came out empty handed from his department. He likes to sue people - he sued Toussaint, the members, and the TWU International. Had a law suit brought about non-payment of wages by Toussaint. Settled out of court to the tune of almost $400,000.

One thing to be noted about Thomas Creegan, and his team is that they have been missing in almost all the activities that combats our employer against laying off over one thousand (1000) in 2010 of our fellow co workers. They were also against the solidarity fund, and as usual they were missing in the first National Conference on Transit Worker Assault.

Many have observed those inferior quality cartoon production (star war cartoons, the chicken dancing etc.) which have made them irrelevant and a joke that no one takes them seriously - (however there are the rare cases where comedians such as Sacha Baron are taken seriously such as in his latest movie as a Dictator). In additon to their lackey the conductor who does not know right from wrong and who could not face a co worker and challenge him. But rather he preferred to cross the line of ethics by his cowardly act of attacking the elderly parents (who have no relationship to NYCTA or TWU Local 100) in their home by dumping negative materials about their child instead of facing off his fellow co worker.

What do you think about this group do they have your interest in mind? If they couldn’t protect their buddy (Israel Rivera Jr) how can they protect the members? 

Overtime hours

As the contract struggle goes on against our employer - one of their demands is that during the cyclical upswing of the economy, the workweek begins to increase above 40 hours per week as our employer’s schedule overtime hours. If all labor costs were variable then our employers’ believes would find it profitable to hire a new part-time worker rather than pay an existing employee time-and-one-half for overtime. The greater the proportion of fixed costs of employment in the MTA compensation package however the more likely it is that paying an employee even at a rate of time-and-one-half will be cheaper to the MTA than hiring a new worker and paying the initial hiring and training costs.

Sensitivity to the business cycle

The first issue is the much greater impact that recession has on employment in certain clinically vulnerable industries in the economy particularly in durable manufacturing. This can be easily illustrated in tables that show the percentage decline in real gross national product and non farm payroll employment, respectively in the goods-producing and service-producing sectors of the economy in each of the recessions. Employment in the goods-producing sector of the economy is subject to the much greater cyclical volatility than is employment in the service sector. Over all recession the average percentage decline in employment in the goods-producing sector was 8.3 percent while employment in the service-producing sector actually increased by 0.3 percent. Within each sector the extremes in the cyclical responsiveness of employment are illustrated by the durable manufacturing industries and government respectively.

Management laughing all the way to the bank

Currently the demand for mass transportation is growing at a record number. Based on that reality is also the consideration of the ease of substitution available to New Yorkers in their choice of mass transportation. On the other hand our employer has not enhanced the labor, capital and other inputs to use in providing mass transportation to New Yorkers.

Producing the product which is mass transportation requires the exorbitant management wage rate to be curtailed. The rise in the management wage rate raises the cost of production unnecessarily - it has a negative effect to blue collar employment for two reasons. 

First, our employer as a public authority is being perceived as wasting monies in unwarranted projects thus that translates in less production and a smaller demand for labor. Second, higher costs of management does not motivate to substitute capital and other inputs for management in the long run, leading further reduction in labor demand.

For example the easier it is for consumers to find a substitute good (such as an imported car) to replace the one whose price has gone up (such as a domestic car) or alternatively the easier it is for our employer to substitute capital for management the greater will be the reduction in employment where the wages of management are on the rise or increased. We do not agree with CEO Joseph Lhota point of view of not reducing the management waste. When will he implement his so called “Throughout my career in both the public and private sectors, I have initiated reforms that are performance-based and that cut costs, and I look forward to bringing this same approach to the MTA,”? Clearly he has failed in this case and the management are laughing all the way to the bank with their exorbitant six figure salaries.

Labor demand

The former CEO Jay H Walder championed the marginal productivity theory which predicts that the demand for labor is downward. The most fundamental implication of this is that wage rates and levels of employment are inversely related - the higher the wage rate, the lower will be the level of employment in the company.

We did not agree then with this concept that the ‘higher the wages lead to less employment’. Walder’s calculations were flawed they singled only the blue collar employees, we wonder why he overlooked the executive, (higher, middle and lower) management. Finally the blue collar workers are skilled while those white collars you can conclude are unskilled and are on a great exorbitant six figure welfare system.

The question is can a computer substitute for those white collar? The simple answer is yes. In addition the computer is very cheap, reliable and dependable. There is no question those white collar are rising the cost of production due to their excessive high six figure wages - there should be a reduction in management cost. 

CED led group

Since Nelson Rivera could not win support from his own people, Joe Campbell self nominated to run for the TWU Local 100 president position - Car Equipment Department - CED people supported him to run for the presidency of TWU Local 100.

It is rumored that Joe Campbell has assembled his prospective top four running mates for union wide offices in the following manner: Joe Campbell - president, Charles Ayala - secretary treasurer (it is not clear if he has accepted to join the CED led group), Stephan Thomas - Administrative vice president, and Kendra Hill as recording secretary. Many have observed that this CED led group will not win the presidency however maybe they have the intentions of retiring so they may as well go out on blazing fire.

Recently TWU Local 100 is preparing and training members to struggle against our employer in gaining a new and better contract however CED leadership advised that they are not interested in participating in any struggle until TWU Local 100 gives a union vehicle to their vice president Nelson Rivera. 

It is strange that those division, shop and barn chairs chose to value the automobile for Nelson Rivera above the contract and well being of their membership. It is absolutely wrong of the CED leadership not to learn from their members when they rejected Nelson Rivera by not backing him to run for the presidency of TWU Local 100 but rather Joe Campbell. It is also wrong for Joe Campbell to ignore the contract and well being of the members of his own department for the sake of an automobile for his vice president - it is a wrong move that would yield in failure in his aspiration - one wonders what they are thinking of.

It is obvious their priorities are mixed up, which is important in your view a contract for many or a car for one individual?

Rowdiness in surface

On Tuesday May 15, 2012 during the Surface Department - transportation side their monthly meeting went out of order, despite numerous calls for order that went unheeded by those who acted like children in high school due to the criticism that was directed towards the vice president of surface Mr. Stephan Thomas. He should have addressed that criticism whether valid or not. However his silence was unclear but it led and fanned the flames of emotions that went awry. We’ve never witnessed an unfounded uprising of such proportions, it did not take a brain surgeon to realize that the onslaught was well trained. Those who shouted at each other were wrong, it was intolerable behavior as far as it concerns our TWU Local 100.

Those who could not try to calm down and behave like adults seemed like they did not have self restraint. It was incomprehensible that if it was beyond them then they should have left the room since we could have continued the monthly meeting and managed without them. That was intolerable behavior and it was disgraceful that every member of the surface - transportation were not able to behave properly. We expect the leadership to be role models not to be egged on by the raw emotions that could have led to physical altercations. What if there was physical contact NYPD & EMS would have been called and probably those fighters would have lost their jobs. Based on that our leadership was wrong.

Thanks to those who had the calmer heads that tried to separate the combatants and mediate their differences by reminding them that we are not in high school grounds. Shame on those who egged on others and those who stood on the sidelines. It also reflected poorly on the Surface Department as a whole. Why can't we generate that hostility or anger and direct it towards the management (we can solve many issues - such as missing swing rooms, faulty equipment,etc) rather than towards our own? We can't figure that one out.

We are also concerned about this unacceptable behavior, we hope from our 

TWU Local 100 president John Samuelsen that he will address it as well as order and conduct an investigation. Specifically looking at first, into what took place, second, the reasons and failure of order, third, the lessons to be learned, fourth and finally admonish and reprimand. We also hope that the investigation be conducted by independent members from other departments and that none of the members of the surface department should have any role in that. It is regrettable that such an incident happened especially when the well being of the membership is at stake as well as their reputation, no one should be allowed to tarnish the good name and image of TWU Local 100 and get away with it.

Positive relationship between wages and blue collar performance

We remember when former CEO Jay H Walder wanted to alter the relationship between the wages that are being paid and the level of productivity of the blue collar. What he neglected was he should have first started at the top executives who are hemorrhaging the resources. In addition to the (upper, middle and lower level) management. However he did not do that, he specifically targeted the blue collar exclusively.

He neglected to take into consideration the theory that higher pay allows workers to improve their physical ability to work through improved nutrition and health. Secondly that a wage increase is likely to stimulate greater work effort and higher morale among the blue collar employees. 

We do not agree with management’s argument that a higher wage will cause the firm to reduce employment due to the higher cost per unit of labor - we will counter that argument with an increase makes each worker become more productive. It is also a fact that a wage increase could actually lead our employer to hire more blue collar employees not less if the higher wage stimulates a sufficiently large increase in worker productivity.

Many have admitted that realistically it is probably true that the level of worker productivity depends to some degree on the rate of pay. Many studies found a positive relationship between wages and blue collar performance.

Labor returns

Marginal productivity is that labor may be subject to increasing returns in the short run not diminishing returns as management assumes. According to the law of diminishing returns as a firm expands employment the marginal product of labor should decline as the fixed stock of capital is spread over more workers. It is precisely impossible to gauge labor productivity (output per hour). It is almost impossible just like the fingers in the hand they are not uniform however they all function together. Thus the output actually varies directly with the level of employment in the firm - when employment rises on a business-cycle upswing output rises more than proportionately.

Since labor productivity is nothing but the average product of labor, economists have reasoned that if the average product rises with increased employment this suggests that the marginal product of labor also increases implying that the marginal revenue product is actually upward. However we know the management do not believe the prevailing thoughts.

Management will always argue on the increasing returns that this it is a statistical illusion caused by faulty data on the level of production. One wonders whether it is true that management wants the labor to produce more for less. During a recession for example firms may have blue collar employees work on deferred maintenance projects or the completion of unfinished assemblies. Since these activities are not counted as part of output their omission causes measured labor productivity to vary regularly in apparent conflict with the predictions of marginal productivity.

In addition management does not believe blue collar workers put in a constant level of effort however they believe that effort is likely to slacken in bad times and increase in good times. We also remember the former CEO Jay H Walder who argued that he will not ‘hoard’ blue collar employees during recession. He was not a fair CEO while he hoarded the white collar by consciously keeping more white collars than are really needed given the current level of production - we wonder why.

Labor proportions

The nature of technology makes it impossible to obtain something from marginal product. We are among those who favor the argument that marginal product schedule assumes that the fixed stock of capital is divisible in the sense that it can be spread among greater and greater numbers of workers as employment is increased.

We did not agree then with the former CEO Jay H Walder’s point of view, who championed that the production process requires labor and capital in relatively fixed proportions.

Here is our reasoning, for example a small commuter airline with say three planes each  which requires two pilots, is it possible to calculate the marginal product of each pilot given the stock capital of three planes? The marginal product of the first pilot would be zero, since with only one pilot no plane could fly. Here we can use this example to respond on their demand or theory of One Person Train Operator - OPTO - with a second pilot one plane could fly and both pilots together would yield a positive increment in production. The addition of yet a third pilot however would not lead to any further increase in production since the second plane could not fly. The result is that it is impossible to either attribute a unique marginal product to each individual worker or to derive a continuous marginal product schedule.

We are aware of the demand on the contract for OPTO by the management - they contend that in nearly all real world production situations there is no fixed necessary relationship between capital and labor. In the example above one pilot could it would be argued fly the plane if she or he had to. The first pilot would have a nonzero marginal revenue product. The second pilot would also have an identifiable marginal revenue product - the increase in safety and efficiency with which the flight is operated.

We know the management argue and blame more often than not, fixed capital/labor requirements stem from the TWU Local 100 work rules (It is a fact a train needs a crew of two not one) rather than from technology itself. 

Marginal productivity

Many have criticized the marginal productivity that deals with the assumption of profit maximization. The forces that drive a firm to make the calculations of marginal revenue product versus marginal cost of labor is the goal of maximizing profits. The critics of this view argue however that private firms particularly in state of limited competition markets or in corporations where ownership and control are separated are more accurately characterized as satisfying with respect to profit. In this view the managers of business firms strive to achieve a minimum level of profit in order to protect their survival and that of the firm. Once this minimum goal is satisfied the managers tolerate some slack in the operation of the firm and no longer strive to fully minimize production cost. One important way firms exhibit satisfying behavior as many have observed is by employing more people that really are needed as evidenced by the bloated ranks of middle management as well as the inefficient organization of production - does this ring a bell?

However one cannot ignore the marginal production problems which play a role into the business decision making process. One can argue however that the ultimate goal of each firm is survival and that survival in a competitive economy requires keeping costs and employment down while keeping profits up. Thus while it may not be literally true that management squeezes out of the business every last dollar of profit possible (this one reminds us of the previous CEO Jay H Walder - with his ‘making every dollar count policies’) the pressure on the firms to survive is sufficiently strong that all other goals in the long run are subordinated to the single goal of maximizing profits. The necessity of making profit in turn assures that business firms will be induced to economize on labor and make hiring decisions that broadly accord with the predictions of marginal production. Many would defend this and argue that this is true even for regulated firms or not-for-profit organizations since their survival and growth requires conscious efforts to minimize cost.

Human cognition

One objection is that the information and computational requirements that are necessary to operationalize the marginal productivity theory generally exceed the mental or cognitive ability of most employers and managers. For example while concept of marginal productivity is clear in theory can the typical manager of a firm actually measure or even approximate the likely increase in production from hiring a new employee?

For a small firm with fairly simple production processes the answer may be yes. However the difficulties of measuring the marginal product in large-scale organizations with a highly interdependent production process preclude the use of marginal calculations. Even if a marginal product can be calculated, simple observation or reasoning would then ask how they can meaningfully compare a worker’s marginal revenue product with the wage when product prices and output levels are constantly changing. Finally the critics argue that case studies and interviews reveal that the actual process of business decision making does not follow the marginal calculations assumed in the theory.

Many have reasoned in several ways. First although managers may not consciously use marginal calculations the decisions they reach approximate those predicted by the theory if the firm is to survive in a competitive business world. Second others have reasoned that managers may not be able to identify the marginal contribution of an individual blue collar or to adjust employment one employee at a time as the theory presumes. However they can identify the revenues and costs associated with particular lines of activity (in example - the baggage handling in an airport or the night shift) and do adjust employment in these activities in light of their contributions to profit.

The demand for labor

The demand for labor is broken into two parts. They are the demand for labor in the short run and the long run. The distinction between the short run and the long run is of fundamental importance. In its attempt to maximize profits a firm will adjust its use of labor, capital, energy and other factor inputs to achieve the lowest cost of production. If the relative price of labor should increase the firm is motivated to cut back on the use of labor and substitute capital and other factor inputs in its place. Every firm however needs time to order and put in place new machinery or to build a new more automated plant. This initial length of time when the firm is locked into a fixed amount of plant and equipment is defined as the short run. The long run is defined as the period of time after which the firm can change not only labor but the amounts of capital and all other factor inputs. The distinction between the short run and the long run is a conceptual one. In practice the actual length of the short run varies considerably from industry to industry. A textile firm for example could quite possibly purchase and put in place new more technologically advanced dyeing and weaving machines in several months. A new integrated steel plant on the other hand might take five (5) years or more to complete.

So the firm objective is to derive the firm’s demand curve for labor showing in the process the reason for the inverse relationship between the wage rate and the firms’ desired level of employment. Firms desired level of sales and its desired level of employment while focusing on the issues such as the impact of the business cycle and the gross profit.

When wives outearn husbands

A recent article in The Wall Street Journal summarized an informal study of married couples in which the wife earned more money than the husband. The results clearly point to the important role that money, power and tradition play in determining the division of labor in many American families.

According to the article about one-fourth of the nation’s working wives earn more than their husbands and about 2 million earn at least twice as much. Surprisingly however only about 15 percent of these women hold professional or managerial positions and less than half have college degrees. A close look at the statistic reveals that in about half of the cases where the wife outearns the husband it is because the husband is 

laid-off, retired or disabled.

The article says that for some couples the greater earning power of the wife has fulfilled dreams of equity and partnership in marriage. Some husbands even like to brag about how their wives’ success has liberated them from traditional wage earners burdens. But for many others a wife’s status as primary breadwinner creates anxiety and stress in the marriage. Divorce is a frequent result. Research finds in fact that the higher the woman’s earnings the higher the chance of divorce.

Why do marriages split up when the wife outearns the husband? An important reason according to the article is that the husband’s position as breadwinner and head of the family is typically based on the fact that he earns more - usually a great deal more - than his wife. Hence when the wife brings home the bigger paycheck the husband often feels threatened and insecure since his role and authority in the family are called into question. As one expert said, ‘The more money a woman makes, the more power she has in the household.’ another remarked ‘Money is the key to understanding authority in the family.’ The result then is that some husbands have difficulty allowing their wives to have the additional authority in the family that goes with a bigger paycheck while the wives are apt to believe they deserve a greater say in family decisions and feel frustrated if they don’t get it.

Besides authority a second issue that comes to play when the wife outearns the husband is the allocation of housework. Interviews revealed that some husbands willingly do more of the household chores such as shopping, cooking and laundry in recognition of their wives’ heavy time demands at work. Others however balk at taking on these tasks and do relatively little of the housework even in situations where the wife works full time but the husband remains at home for most of the day. A number of women interviewed for the article said they resented the fact that their husbands did not do more of the housework but that they preferred to do it themselves rather than risk family turmoil by bringing up the subject.

The article concluded that when a wife outearns the husband the marriage is almost always significantly altered sometimes for the good and sometimes not. The couples most likely to successfully adjust to their role reversal tend to fall in one of the three groups - couples with similar education levels and occupations, wealthy couples who can avoid the conflict over household chores by hiring help and couples who start out in marriage with the wife as the primary breadwinner.

Marital status

The household model suggests that each person should allocate an additional hour to home work as long as its value exceeds the monetary value received from an hour of work at a paying job. Why, it is believed that there is a greater division between married people and single people in the labor market.

Perhaps the most fundamental difference between the average single, never married person and the family unit of husband and wife is the presence of children. One important reason for the division of labor in a married couple is because the presence of children substantially increases the value of an hour of time spent at home work relative to market work. Children particularly preschoolers require substantial amounts of time for caring, feeding and training and thus an hour of time devoted to home work will increase the individual and family’s well-being by more on average than the same hour devoted to home work by a single person.

The second aspect of the time allocation decision for a married couple is to choose the combination of husband’s time and wife’s time to allocate to home work. Traditionally the husband specialized in market work and the wife specialized in home work. The household model suggests that this decision reflected first the higher wage rate the husband could earn from an hour of market work relative to the wife and second the greater actual or perceived productivity of the wife at various home tasks particularly child care. Thus marriage causes a more pronounced difference in male and female labor force participation because on one hand marriage leads to activities (for example bearing and raising children) that enhance the value of time spent at home work while at the same time allowing a degree of specialization in market and non market work unavailable to the single person.

Budget constraint, income and wages

The demand for a good or service is shaped not only by preferences but also by economic factors such as price and income. Consider first the price of leisure. An hour of leisure has no necessary explicit cost. It is possible to sit under a tree and daydream without spending a cent. There is a definite cost to that hour of leisure however in the sense of an opportunity cost. Every hour spent in leisure is an hour that could have been devoted to market work. The opportunity cost of an hour of leisure therefore is equal to the wage rate per hour of work. The higher the wage is the higher the price of leisure.

The wage earned per hour multiplied by the number of hours worked per week yields total weekly earnings from work. This relationship between the wage rate hours worked and total income is known as the budget constraint. It shows all the various combinations of income and hours of work (and thus of leisure) that are available to an individual given the wage that he or she can earn in the market.

Ditch King Bloomberg

We do not agree with the New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s ‘plans announced earlier this year to cut day care and after school programs for close to 50,000 children’ we say have mercy on poor New Yorkers especially the defenseless children.

We here in why did you join the union believe that is a huge number of children to be denied day care and after school programs. It is very discomforting when King Bloomberg championed that the big banks are too big to fail in 2008, we know the excuse then was to rescue the financial system. Now as our political leader who bends the rules to get in his third term, he should champion children’s causes especially those lofty ones but don't hold your breath. 

We remember King Bloomberg and his ‘anti’ transportation commissioner had a vision of the city as some sort of new Copenhagen, where bicyclists flood the streets and automobiles, buses and trucks are rarities banned from many of our thoroughfares. We know Copenhagen is a charming place designed long before the internal combustion engine could even be conceived of. However Copenhagen is also a tiny city one that unlike massive New York City can be walked end-to-end, side-to-side in a matter of hours. Maybe Copenhagen’s charm is enhanced by the bicycle culture but our communities and local businesses cannot afford to fall victim to yet another one of King Bloomberg’s euro-fantasies.

We in here in why did you join the union know that King Bloomberg, keeps on plotting on how to undermine TWU Local 100 we understand that with his infinite plans in closing streets, radically changing the traffic pattern, eliminating parking spaces and selling it as some sort of wild chance that folks will bicycle over to lounge away their days on a tiny patch of grass alongside the buses, traffic and noise of New York City. Also get this send those New Yorkers an annual bill for the upkeep of this wacky ‘park’, what should we think? However when he plots against countless defenseless children, we say no more cuts.

We think that the future of our children should not be sacrificed on the altar of King Bloomberg’s two-wheeled craziness or warped ambitions paid for with the blood of already put upon New Yorkers that continue to suffer.

Labor Market

The science of economics is concerned with the allocation of resources in the economy and the determination of prices and level of production. For a capitalist economy the primary theoretical construct used to understand these issues is the market model of supply and demand. In labor economics one particular market the labor market is studied. 

Labor is a service that households supply to business firms in order to earn an income and that the business firms demand in order to produce their product. It is this interaction of the demand and supply of labor that determines wage rates, the level of employment and the distribution of income in the economy. Market forces of supply and demand are not the only determinants of these market outcomes however institutional and sociological forces also play roles. Institutional forces affect labor market outcomes through the influence of organizations such as large corporations and government. Sociological forces exert their influence through such factors as culture, class, discrimination and custom. There is no one model in labor economics that weaves these market, institutional and sociological forces into a universally accepted theory of how the labor market works. Rather there are different views that give varying degrees of emphasis to the relative importance of these forces in the labor market and the degree to which the market forces of supply and demand efficiently work to set wage rates and allocate labor. 

To discriminate between these views therefore requires a process of guesses that can be tested which can validate the guess that can be used to predict the outcome of the labor market.

Poisonous tree

As it was reported former president Roger Toussaint will retire on May 1. We here in why did you join the union say good riddance. We add that the leaves, branches and roots of that poisonous tree must be removed. 

Who can forget or even overlook when Jose Rosado opposed Roger Toussaint and was fired and sent back to his tools while at the same time he was diagnosed with illness. That would make it impossible for Rosado to return to his job as bus operator who was a board member and the director of the TWU Local 100 Grievance and Discipline. That  was an immoral act by Toussaint.

Many of you know who are the leaves, branches and roots of that poisonous tree. Now is the time for pruning - no forget pruning. We say removal would be a good sign for solidarity among the membership of TWU Local 100. There are two dead branches that must be removed. As we know an arborist would recommend that dead trees and branches are unpredictable and can break and fall at any time. Dead wood is often dry and brittle and cannot bend in the wind like a living tree or branch. Dead branches and tree tops that are already broken off (“hangers” or “widow makers”) are especially dangerous thus we have to heed to that advice.

Did Roger Toussaint ‘smash the TA’s disciplinary machine?’ many of you have heard him utter those words - what do you think about those words? We can speculate what is on your mind.

Since he took the leadership of TWU Local 100 Toussaint almost all of his agreements have come to haunt and harm the membership which have become more increasingly common. It is obvious he could not look forward or toward the future of what his actions would yield. The poisonous tree produced rotten and non-edible poisonous fruits.

He has not shined on even one occasion an exceptional individual may shine but many (and the membership in the care) are doomed by his inexperience. Respect is the grease that makes the good union successful. When a struggling Toussaint stays in management what we had was a clueless neophyte. There was no benchmark to rate him for his performance and accountability. He was nothing but a dictator who was eager to make the image seem much better than the reality.

We say to those Toussaintistas - the leaves and dead branches, now is the right time for them to follow in the footsteps of dead poisonous tree trunk and retire!