Use Reagan's Example: Fire Them All

Although I'm pretty much completely unaffected by the transit strike in New York, I am bothered by the arrogance of public employee unions who feel they are above the law and can disrupt an entire city in an effort to satisfy their selfish desires. These people want something like a 24% raise over three years - way above inflation and anything reasonable. They're being offered something like 10.5%.

So how much does a NY transit worker make? According to The Corner:

Among the many marvels of the transit strike is the news that the average train or bus driver earns $63,000 per year. The typical station agent (i.e. the person in the cage) makes $51,000. The average New Yorker makes $45,000.

By the way, the starting salary for a New York City policeman is $35,000.

In the 80's, the air traffic controllers went on an illegal strike and President Reagan fired them all. It takes a significant amount of training to become an air traffic controller, but that didn't stop Reagan. It also didn't stop the nation's air traffic system, and everything went on as scheduled.

Just about anybody can be trained to drive a bus or open and shut the doors on a subway train. I'm sure there are people out there who would gladly take those jobs at half the salary, so why should Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Pataki wait even another day? Fire them and start over.