Long Island Bus takeover needed, long overdue

The Island Now

Regarding the subject editorial, the acquisition of MTA/LIBus by a private operator is long overdue.

The core reason the transport union and its political sycophants continue to fight this transfer, tooth and nail, is clear as a bell to anyone with even a room temperature IQ.

After all, who do you think the unions would rather do business with – private sector management or the jackasses on daily parade in Albany?

While the beneficiaries of the bus system are the commuting public, the stakeholders are a different matter.

At the end of the day, the taxpayers implicitly stand behind all highly subsidized public monopolies formed to “advance the general welfare.”

As such, they have a superior claim, both economic and moral, on how these businesses are managed. The unions have no such claim.

The home truth is very simple. Employees, whether union or non-union, are a ‘factor of production’ and as such can only claim whatever wages and benefits that can freely bargain for in the marketplace. They have no superior claim on the ultimate resources of the Bus System i.e. taxpayer support, despite their pretensions to the contrary.

Hopefully Veolia will bring a long overdue breath of fresh air to labor-management bargaining and firmly disabuse the unions and their political water carriers of the mentality of perpetual entitlement.

Who knows, in the process they might even get the system to run on schedule from time to time.

Tom Coffey

Herricks

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