One of perfect examples of the lack of basic democratic rights in our country is the Taylor Law. As many of you know, it prevents New York public employees in New York from striking–and imposes heavy penalties on people who try to exercise a right that is pretty basic in many other democracies.

Yesterday, the New York City Council held a hearing about this odious law. The impetus for the hearing is the still unresolved transit workers contract. Union members are still facing loss of pay for the three days they struck last December, not to mention the $3 million fine facing the union. Here’s a bit from The New York Times piece on the hearing:

The Taylor Law, as it has been known since it took effect in 1967, has long been a thorn in the side of public employee unions. The law, which calls for punishing striking workers and resolving bargaining deadlocks with binding arbitration, is far beyond the control of the City Council’s Committee on Civil Service and Labor, but the committee heard the labor leaders’ message at a hearing yesterday nevertheless.

With the labor standoff between the city’s bus and subway workers and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority still unresolved, members of the Council said they hoped to underscore flaws and inequities in the law. Among the labor leaders appearing yesterday were Patrick J. Lynch, president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, and Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers.

I’m all for standing up against the Taylor Law. I do wonder, though, why the various labor leaders were less than gung-ho to confront the city when the transit workers were actually out in the cold. It was not labor’s finest moment. But, yes, let’s take this awful law on.