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| Re: Why are MTA workers not striking due to tonight's conductor assault? (1519127) | |||
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Re: Why are MTA workers not striking due to tonight's conductor assault? |
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Posted by Nilet on Sat Jul 20 10:03:04 2019, in response to Re: Why are MTA workers not striking due to tonight's conductor assault?, posted by Jsun21 on Sat Jul 20 09:19:03 2019. I see you're a fan of stretching the arguments to absurd lengthsIncorrect. the NYP get stories from sources the timing and contents of those stories an insider can connect dots and see that it isn't just random journalism. The New York Post is a propaganda rag not worth the paper it's printed on. As for evidence, there is sufficient anecdotal evidence. The plural of anecdote is not data. The assaults generally occur when there is a face-to-face conflict with the public which for Railroad and Bus employees is fare collection, for the RTO workers its during dwells and face-to-face questions during delays. That assaults committed against on-duty workers tend to occur when those workers are in contact with the public is not surprising. Most workers including myself will draw a correlation between fare evasion and assaults. In other words, there is a correlation between fare evasion and assault according to several uncontrolled unblinded n=1 studies. The fare evasion itself is partly a function of poverty which has a relatively constant baseline level, the outstanding balance however is a function of people who feel entitled not to pay the fare. You can't necessarily make that conclusion. How do you know it's not peer pressure, or a rational decision based on the calculation that a $100 fine multiplied by the odds of getting caught is less than $2.75 or mechanical failure or a simple sense of "I'm in a rush and can't spare the time to refill my metrocard" or anything else? You can't just assume people's motivations en masse. Their 'logic' is 'I pay taxes' or 'y'all screwed me last week you should give me a free ride' or 'y'all always late, I shouldn't have to pay if you can't do your job'. Have you done any actual studies on farebeaters to reach this conclusion? While some individual farebeaters may have stated their motivation as such, it's impossible to draw broad conclusions based on that. So let's go through a hypothetical scenario. Let's see some evidence that this scenario is representative of typical assaults on transit staff. People down here are feeling very spiteful and vindictive. I once had a guy tell me while I was clearing out the train that he wasn't leaving because "you wasted five minutes of my time, I'm going to waste five minutes of yours" which I thought was hilarious, but needless to say he actually took out his watch and did it, completely screwing over the three trains behind us. Funny anecdote, but still not data. Welcome to working with the public. There is no useful comparison between 'regular' jobs and Public transportation. In one you're viewed as a cog in a big machine, as someone like them trying to get by. So there is some public sympathy and even so most disputes land along the lines of 'I want to speak to your manager'. As a public servant people think they own you and that you are personally subservient to their individual needs. Have you ever worked retail? I can assure you that the sorts of annoyances you face from an entitled public are inherent to any job that involves working with the public. For every jerk who thinks it's your fault the trains are late is another jerk who thinks it's the minimum wage employee's fault that the McDonalds ice cream machine is broken. There must be some glitch in the internet, I never said to cover every train or to eliminate all assaults, the point is they are higher than normal in a comparable period and have been for several years now with no apparent corrective action. Define "normal." Is a typical transit worker more likely to be assaulted than a typical convenience store employee? Or bank teller? Or subway rider? Or random person on the street? You've posted anecdotes about individual assaults, people reacting to anecdotes, and a hint of a momentary uptick in incidents but nothing definitively showing that the rate is trending upwards and that a change in policy could do something about it. If you're going to try to straw man and hyperbolize the arguments to this ridiculous degree I'm forced to believe you aren't capable of a genuine conversation on the matter. You implied that a change in MTA policy could have prevented these assaults, but you haven't managed to articulate exactly what said policy would look like. It's hard to imagine how they could have been prevented short of a cop being on the train at the time. But if that's not your argument, then what is? Also it is something that the MTA employees take seriously, this is an assault you heard about but there are numerous assaults every week across the agencies, not just the ones that make the paper, I don't have doubts that there will be a response from the Unions, it weighs too heavily on the minds of a lot of peoples minds. No one wants to go to work, encounter a problem they can't control and get spit on for it. But none of that changes the fact that a transit strike would not, in any way, address those issues. You can minimize that concern all you want Now who's using straw man arguments? |
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