MESSAGE
| DATE | 2020-07-30 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] Bounces City and State checks...
|
nypost.com
Manhattan just lost its stranglehold on white-collar workers
Nicole Gelinas
4-5 minutes
For half a century, New York City was home to an archetypical
white-collar worker: he (and later she) who would perform feats of
creativity, daring and endurance to get to work.
Consider three subway strikes.
In 1966, the Transport Workers Union greeted freshly sworn-in Mayor John
Lindsay by stopping all subway and bus service. Earlier strikes had hit
separate parts of transit, but it was the first time the entire urban
system was shuttered.
One of Lindsays responses was also a first: Implore people not to come
to work. Lindsay knew that he was saying literally three-quarters of the
people who normally would come into Manhattan should stay home, as he
put it. And he knew that, too, its very difficult for a man, when he is
shaving in the morning, to look at himself and say, Im not really
essential.
White-collar New Yorkers proved his point as they ignored his efforts.
Grand Central and Penn Station had to close their doors to record crowds
who lined up for hours to take (non-striking) commuter rail. People
drove, creating what the traffic commissioner called the longest rush
hour in the citys history.
It was lower-wage workers who suffered, with 75 percent of people in the
garment industry, employing 175,000 New Yorkers, unable to make it in.
The strike was hardly seen as a fortuitous sign for Gotham. Rather, it
was a signal that the city was ungovernable people wouldnt listen to
the new mayor and inhospitable to blue-collar industry.
In retrospect, though, it pointed up something hopeful. Even when
Manhattan wanted them to stay home, the bankers, lawyers, advertising
men, typists, secretaries and fashion designers needed Manhattan, for
intense face-to-face contact with suppliers, customers, employees,
employers and competitors.
Fourteen years later, this glimpse of the future had arrived. In April
1980, the TWU struck again and Mayor Ed Koch adopted an entirely
different tack. Unlike Lindsay, he cheered people as they donned
sneakers with suits and skirts or biked across the Brooklyn Bridge. Were
not going to let these bastards bring us to our knees, he said.
Transit commuting as an aspect of white-collar identity was part of
late-80s pop-culture New York, which popularized the city for more
people who wanted to achieve their dream here. In Wall Street, Charlie
Sheen takes a subway to work. In Working Girl, Melanie Griffith takes
the Staten Island Ferry.
The movies brought home the reality: Whatever you want, you arent going
to get it unless you come to Manhattan and skipping even one day could
be missing your big break.
By December 2005, the third and last (so far) transit strike, things had
changed. Plenty of people clearly just stayed home, The New York Times
estimated. In large swaths of Manhattan, it seemed as if Christmas had
already arrived, with icy streets silent.
But it was almost Christmas, and the strike lasted only three days, so
it couldnt mean much.
In the first days of the current crisis, in mid-March, the MTA, like
Lindsay, asked people to stay home. This time, they did. Only essential
workers kept coming in.
Now, the city or, at least, sentient public and private-economy
officials who can see implications, a group that notably doesnt include
the mayor wants people to come back. Office-building managers have
replanted flowers for summer and installed cheery greeters.
But people arent coming. Midtown is a little busier than in mid-March.
Its still empty. Yes, employers may find that its harder to integrate
new workers into a virtual workforce or that workers become less
productive over time.
Nevertheless, its something the city has never seen before, not on the
cusp of 70s turmoil, in 1966; not emerging from 70s near-bankruptcy, in
1980; not even in 2005, which was too short to matter.
The white-collar workforce has proved it can skip the office not just
one day, not just a week, not just two weeks, but for nearly five months
now.
Five months isnt forever, no. But it is a long time. Just as emerging
city and state officials want to extract more, in higher taxes, from
business and its workers, the balance of power has indefinitely changed.
Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor of City Journal.
Twitter: -at-NicoleGelinas
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www2.mrbrklyn.com/resources - Unpublished Archive
http://www.coinhangout.com - coins!
http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
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