No sympathy

With liberal friends like these, transit workers don't need enemies. Kevin Drum writes.

But retiring at age 55, with 25 years on the job, at half salary? I support unions and I support the notion that Americans work too much, but even so that strikes me as indefensible. After all, most people have working lives of 40-50 years, and it's hard to imagine that they have a lot of sympathy for a deal like that. I have to confess that I don't.

I suggest Mr. Drum get out of his car, leave lovely Southern California for a wee bit, and spend an hour -- an hour -- underground on the Shuttle platform or navigating a bus crossing midtown Manhattan. Between the noise, the hypertension, the grit and the dust, and the general air of hostility, he'd find that 25 years on the job is a freakin' lifetime.

We heard notions like that all week from liberals nevermind conservatives during the transit strike (most often from people living far from NYC). People are living oh, so much longer, they should work longer too (I don't remember liberals saying this so loudly during the fight over Social Security). As a professional blogger, where his greatest health threat is carpal tunnel syndrom or wrenching his back reaching under his desk to retrieve a cheese doodle, I can understand why he wouldn't understand that transit workers -- like cops and firefighters -- are so insistent that they get the chance to retire (at half pay) a few years before high blood pressure, a heart attack, or lung disease gets them.

Merry Christmas, Kev.