Didn\'t a judge sometime last week deny that the union could not strike?
From the text in the 1st post.
The strike defies the Taylor Law, which forbids public employees from walking off the job. The law imposes a fine of two days\' pay for each day of an illegal strike.
In addition, the union could be fined millions of dollars a day.
The union and the more than 30,000 members of Local 100 also risk contempt for defying a court injunction last week barring the strike.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the strike "illegal and morally reprehensible" and said the union faces severe consequences.
"This is not only an affront to the concept of public service, it is a cowardly attempt by Roger Toussaint and the TWU to bring the city to its knees to create leverage for their own bargaining position," Bloomberg said at a news conference Monday night. (Watch the mayor vow to hit the union hard -- 3:12)
New York Gov. George Pataki echoed those sentiments, saying union members "are also recklessly endangering the health and safety of each and every New Yorker."
The chairman of the Metropolitan Transit Authority, Peter Kalikow, said its lawyers and New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer will begin with contempt proceedings against the union.
