Locked-out utility workers will be rallying in Union Square this evening against Con Ed, cheered on by all the usual suspects — including those who really know better.
The demonstration comes two weeks after the utility replaced its rank-and-file workers with management types.
The issue: Contract talks had reached an impasse, and union bosses refused to give the utility a pledge not to strike without reasonable notice. Hence the lockout.
It’s not a happy circumstance — especially given the weather-related stress New York’s electrical grid has been under.
But Con Ed has been quite reasonable throughout — both in its negotiating positions and insisting on notice from the union before striking.
While the union — UWUA Local 1-2 — has every right in the world to strike, it has no reasonable expectation that Con Ed won’t protect itself.
And, in so doing, protect the millions of New Yorkers for whom a reliable supply of electricity could literally be a matter of life and death.
It’s as simple as that.
So simple that one might hope that the city’s public officials would get it, too.
In vain, as it turns out.
“Your actions do not have my support,” huffed City Council Speaker Chris Quinn in a letter to Con Ed CEO Kevin Burke last week. She said Con Ed’s move “to unilaterally impose a lockout during a heat wave . . . was an escalation of management/labor tensions . . . placing many New Yorkers’ lives in danger.”
Wow. Talk about upside-down thinking.
Con Ed made its decision to protect New Yorkers from staffing shortages that would seriously exacerbate equipment failures.
True, that’s taking a risk: Con Ed has deployed 5,000 fill-ins for some 8,500 locked-out workers.
But, again, the onus is on the union: A reasonable strike-warning pledge would have prevented the lockout.
So if a manpower shortage now leads to an otherwise avoidable blackout, the blame would rest entirely with the union.
And with pols, like Quinn, who back it.
Fact is, Quinn & Co. should be taking a side in this labor spat: Con Ed’s side.
And not just on the question of the lockout, but on the contract, too. The utility, after all, is trying to hold down its costs, so it can hold down rates for customers.
For the businesses that employ Con Ed customers.
And for all the New Yorkers Quinn & Co. allegedly represent.
For sure, she’s not the only pol to abandon customers and constituents: Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, among others, have put pressure on Con Ed.
That pleases the union.
And to hell with New York.