New York city transit workers strike
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-20 19:08

Like last week, Bloomberg headed to the Office of Emergency Management headquarters and planned to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall if there were a strike.

Pension issues have been a major sticking point in the talks. The MTA wants to raise the age at which new employees become eligible for full pension from 55 to 62, which the union says is unfair.

Commuter frustration was evident Monday, with people fed up with all the uncertainty.

"Enough is enough," said Craig DeRosa, who relies on the subway to get to work. "Their benefits are as rich as you see anywhere in this country and they are still complaining. I don't get it."

Frustration also mounted in Queens, where employees of the striking Jamaica Buses Inc. and Triboro Coach Corp. bus lines were out early �� many chanting "No contract, no work!"

The companies serve about 50,000 commuters, and are in the process of being taken over by the MTA. Thus, the union temporarily found a loophole to avoid the state law that prohibits strikes by public employees.

"No one wants to be out here," said 36-year-old Triboro bus driver Frank Lomanto, standing outside the company depot. "But this is something we have to do."

At a Jackson Heights transit hub shortly after midnight, Brunilda Ayala said she had no sympathy for the union.

"How can you give a raise to a bus driver who would make three old ladies walk home in the cold?" asked Ayala, 57.

Jose Padilla, 34, said he and fellow Coca-Cola employees are meeting at 4 a.m. to come up with a plan to put more workers in trucks to ensure their product gets delivered in the case of a strike.

"We have to get the Coke to the people," Padilla said. "Just because there is a strike, people don't stop drinking coke."

A citywide bus and subway strike would be New York's first since an 11-day walkout in 1980.