The city’s last transit strike ended after 11 days with no one going to jail, nearly $20 million in penalties being imposed on strikers – and a settlement that both Mayor Ed Koch and union militants denounced as a sellout.
The stage was set for a bitter struggle as 1980 began because the Transport Workers Union was demanding 30 percent-a-year pay hikes to make up for what it called the sacrifices that members had made during the city’s fiscal crisis of the 1970s. The transit fare then was 50 cents.
A mediator’s idea of 8 percent hikes was on the table when the walkout began April 1.
On April 11, a deal was reached that gave the union a 9 percent raise the first year, and 8 percent the second.