Great Western Coffee Shop

I know Bob Crow can sound a bit militant at times, but let's hope he doesn't take any tips from Transport Workers' Union (TWU) Local 234 in Philadelphia... The city division bus drivers, subway drivers, trolley drivers and mechanics have been working without a contract for several months, and a couple of weeks ago voted to strike. Over the weekend there were frantic negotiations between TWU local 234, SEPTA management, the city mayor and the state Governor during which the union said they weren't going to walk out after all - this was a good thing because there were three world series baseball games played in the city over the weekend and it would have been chaos.

Two hours after the third world series game finished, at 0300 on Tuesday, TWU 234 announced a strike and promptly walked out indefinitely, catching virtually the entire city off-guard when it woke up on Tuesday to discover that, without much warning, there was no public transport!

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20091104_Nutter__Rendell_blast_SEPTA_union_for_surprise_strike.html (http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20091104_Nutter__Rendell_blast_SEPTA_union_for_surprise_strike.html)

And I thought 'one out, all out' was the 'British Disease'. Was it carried across the pond on the Mayflower?  ;D ;D

The USA have this strange system where you sign a contract for a set amount of time.  This means every couple of years you get these crunch points where the workers no longer have a contract so strikes can start with no warning.  Dont really understand it to be honest.