Enough Blame to Go Around: The Labor Pains of New York City's Public Employee Unions

Veteran labor journalist Richard Steier explores the tensions between New York City's public employee unions, their critics, and city and state politicians. Since 1980 Richard Steier has had a unique vantage point to observe the gains, losses, and struggles of municipal labor unions in New York City. He has covered those unions and city government as a reporter and labor columnist for the New York Post and, since 1998, as editor and featured columnist of the Chief-Leader, a century-old independent newspaper that covers city and state government in greater detail than today's mainstream news organizations. Drawing from his column with the Chief-Leader, "Razzle Dazzle," Enough Blame to Go Around describes in vivid terms how the changed economy has drastically altered the city's labor landscape, and why it has been difficult for municipal unions to adapt. There can be no doubt, he writes, that public employee unions have contributed to the problems that confront them today, including corruption and failed leadership. But at the same time and for all their flaws, he believes unions represent the best chance for ordinary people to receive fair economic treatment.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Introduction List of Acronyms and Abbreviations Unions on the Run A New Sheriff’s in Town; The Town Is Nottingham Staring Down the Barrel of Reagan’s Legacy The ‘Evil Genius’ Loses One ‘Christmas Bonuses’ and Other Wicked Fables Unions Finally Aroused by Mayor’s Distortions Pensions a Beachhead for Class Warfare Tabs to Randi: Burn, Baby Sister Randi Explains It All OTB Workers Unwilling to Gamble on Defiance ‘The Prince’ Incarnate in a Cuomovellian Gambit With Leaders Like These… Judge Speaks Loud for McLaughlin’s Victims A School Bus Frame-Up DOE Won’t Talk About Let’s Not Strike for Spike Busfellas’ Past Helped Mayor to Break Strike Police Unions in All Their Complexities Enough Blame to Go Around A Tough Guy Gets Undressed Savage Steps Out Boldly Giuliani’s Toxic Cynicism The Demise of a Once-Great Union Targets: Friends of Rudy Gotbaum’s Revised History Stern Reaction for DC 37 Delusions of Entitlement An Absence of Leadership Sad Tale of Two Charlies She Didn’t Stick to Story DC 37, after the Gold Rush Butler’s Banana Republic Roberts Is Queen of Denial Roberts Wins, DC 37 Loses Elegy for a Flawed Fighter Same Old Song for DC 37 The Rise and Fall of a Militant Whose Vision Went Sour Toussaint’s Quiet Revolution The World v. Mr. Toussaint Hard to Be Toussaint in City For Toussaint, Power Is All That’s Left What Killed Roger Rebel? A Self-Inflicted Wound Epilogue Index