As workers began a strike at two Queens bus lines this morning, the president of the transit union said that if the Metropolitan Transportation Authority fails to make significant concessions today, the entire union will walk off the job after midnight tonight. After a weekend of stop-and-start talks, negotiators on both sides were no closer to an agreement today than they were early Friday morning, when talks broke off acrimoniously and the union put off its deadline for a citywide strike until 12:01 a.m.Tuesday.
See "Union Chief Warns of Citywide Transit Walkout Tonight", Sewell Chen and Steven Greenhouse, The New York Times, December 18, 2005