All the major New York City news outlets are reporting a judge’s decision to hit Local 100 of the Transit Workers Union with a $2.5 million fine for the three-day strike last December. Worse, the judge has ordered a suspension of the union’s ability to automatically collect union dues through payroll deductions.

As any union activist or leader will tell you, suspending dues check-off, in the long-run, is a much more dangerous penalty–you can pay off the one-time fine but it will be nearly impossible for the union to collect dues without automatic deduction, particularly with a workforce that is on the move all the time and scattered so far and wide across the city.

Which brings us to the Taylor Law. A few weeks ago, there was a hearing in the City Council about the awful law, which prohibits public employees from striking and allows the legal system to impose fines and jail time on union leaders and members who are willing to thumb their noses at the law. On top of the financial penalties meted out by the judge, Roger Toussaint, the union’s president, is soon headed to jail for ten days on a contempt of court charge.

I’ve said before I think the Taylor Law is an ugly stain on a democratic society–if people don’t have the legal right to strike, then, what is the counter force that can be brought against the power of employers to simply dictate whatever they please?

Think about it. In effect, the Taylor Law is the instrument being used to undercut our basic living standards–not just the living standards of the transit workers but every person living in this city. The strike took place, in effect, for the benefit of every worker because the principle of the strike boiled down to the notion that every person deserves a decent wage, health care and a respectable retirement to look forward to.