MTA Strike - Keep your problems out of my life!

It's a classic deadlock - workers want more money than the bossman is willing to pay. It's a completely reasonable thing for both parties.

But then, things escalate. No compromise can be reached, and eventually -- WALKOUT!

The news reports this morning detail the millions of stranded commuters - walking to work in sub-freezing temperatures. Even worse, the NY economy suffers losses of $400M per day.

Commuters interviewed on TV seemed to express support for the strike with comments like: "Good for them! They should stand up for what they deserve!"

Walkouts are ridiculous. Outrageous. Ideally, they should never happen. Why? Because they cause enormous economic damage to third parties.

I want you to think about this seriously for a moment - what are the true effects of a walkout on the public:
- $400 MILLION dollars of economic loss a day.
- People will lose their jobs because they cannot get to work.
- Businesses may close down due to lack of customers.
- Innocent people will have heart attacks from walking 3 miles to work in the cold.

Walkouts cause massive, unreasonable damage to third-parties that can never be recovered.

I understand that the two parties couldn't agree on a new compensation package. But I am outraged that there's a walkout. For years there's been a better way: the Virtual Strike. It's even been used in transit-worker situations in the past with success.

In the virtual strike, there's no walkout. But employees don't get paid, and the money that the company would normally pay to the employees goes to some third party - a charity, etc. It's exactly the same as a normal strike but without massive economic damages to the public.

The only downside to the virtual strike is the loss of the effect of the walkout on the public. Those staging the walkout probably do benefit disproportionately from the public's painful awareness of the work stoppage. Given the reactions of solidarity from the public on the walkout, I can understand why the employees wouldn't want to use a virtual strike.

However, the public should realize that when employees walk out, they are basically stealing from everyone in the city. They are stealing your time, your money, your business, and your happiness, just to improve their negotiating position a little bit. They could agree to a virtual strike and acheive the power of a real walkout without disrupting the entire city. They choose not to.

Now, there is a possibility that a virtual strike was never discussed; if so, this is terribly saddening. The people on both sides in charge should be expert enough in their posts to know about the virtual strike. If not, let's tell them!

This brings us to the media. Why does the media just report on the stranded commuters and traffic jams? Please, do a real public service and shame both sides into using the virtual strike. Educate your viewers on real alternatives to the nonsense that is a walkout.

I belive in market forces - the power of the public to influence others simply with their behavior. Wherever possible, I like to let the markets make economic corrections, not the government. I'd rather the public demand that virtual strikes become the status quo rather than having the govenrment mandate this behavior.

So, to that end, I urge you to pass on the idea of a virtual strike to everyone you know, and ask them to contact the media, the unions, and the city, and urge them to stop stealing from you and go on virtual strike.