New York's subway and buses were up and running again early yesterday after a three-day public-transit strike that left New Yorkers walking and biking across the metropolis in bitter cold.
The subway began running at midnight along New York's nearly 1,000km of train lines, and buses had begun servicing their routes again on Thursday night.
The strike had affected 7 million New York workers, students and tourists as well as commuters living outside the city.
PHOTO: AFP
Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the end of the strike on Thursday after the union for 33,700 subway and bus workers agreed to end the work stoppage without a deal on a new contract to resume formal negotiations with transit officials. They had faced substantial pressure to stop the strike, including massive fines and the threat of jail for the union's top three leaders.
"Everything will go back to normal at midnight," Bloomberg said at a news conference.
Bloomberg praised Transport Workers Union leader Roger Toussaint for "acting right" by calling off the strike before negotiations were to restart with Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which runs the vast transit system.
Earlier, Bloomberg had called union leaders' behavior "thuggish."
Toussaint and MTA officials earlier reached agreement with New York state mediator Richard Curreri that the strike be ended so talks could begin again.
Curreri said he had held "fruitful," albeit separate, discussions with both sides during the strike.
"Both parties have a genuine desire to resolve their differences," he said.
Transit workers, who make US$35,000 dollars to US$55,000 a year, demanded a 24 percent pay increase in a new three-year contract while the MTA offered 9 percent. Pension and health were the other contentious issues.
News that the strike had ended caught New Yorkers by surprise as offices were closing on Thursday. Streams of people walked from midtown Manhattan toward the Brooklyn Bridge to their homes in the Brooklyn borough, some having to walk 8km each way since the strike begun.
Others shared livery cabs or taxis four or five at a time as required by the city's contingency plans.
Attendance at schools was higher on Thursday after dropping to 71 percent on Wednesday because of the strike. Restaurant business was down to 40 percent and the economic toll for department stores, museum and Broadway shows was higher.
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
FALLEN: The nine soldiers who were killed while carrying out combat and engineering tasks in Russia were given the title of Hero of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended a welcoming ceremony for an army engineering unit that had returned home after carrying out duties in Russia, North Korean state media KCNA reported on Saturday. In a speech carried by KCNA, Kim praised officers and soldiers of the 528th Regiment of Engineers of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) for “heroic” conduct and “mass heroism” in fulfilling orders issued by the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea during a 120-day overseas deployment. Video footage released by North Korea showed uniformed soldiers disembarking from an aircraft, Kim hugging a soldier seated in a wheelchair, and soldiers and officials
‘NO AMNESTY’: Tens of thousands of people joined the rally against a bill that would slash the former president’s prison term; President Lula has said he would veto the bill Tens of thousands of Brazilians on Sunday demonstrated against a bill that advanced in Congress this week that would reduce the time former president Jair Bolsonaro spends behind bars following his sentence of more than 27 years for attempting a coup. Protests took place in the capital, Brasilia, and in other major cities across the nation, including Sao Paulo, Florianopolis, Salvador and Recife. On Copacabana’s boardwalk in Rio de Janeiro, crowds composed of left-wing voters chanted “No amnesty” and “Out with Hugo Motta,” a reference to the speaker of the lower house, which approved the bill on Wednesday last week. It is
Cozy knits, sparkly bobbles and Santa hats were all the canine rage on Sunday, as hundreds of sausage dogs and their owners converged on central London for an annual parade and get-together. The dachshunds’ gathering in London’s Hyde Park came after a previous “Sausage Walk” planned for Halloween had to be postponed, because it had become so popular organizers needed to apply for an events licence. “It was going to be too much fun so they canceled it,” laughed Nicky Bailey, the owner of three sausage dogs: Una and her two 19-week-old puppies Ember and Finnegan, wearing matching red coats and silver
RSS