The popsicle analogy: Yellow or red?
As the rhetoric between LIRR unions and MTA manager heats up, a peculiar analogy raised by a key MTA official has cooled them down some.
At a news briefing Wednesday, MTA chief negotiator Gary Dellaverson, in explaining why the lump sum offer being made management was no different than the wage increases sought by workers, “It’s as if you said … 'I don’t want a red popsicle. I want a yellow popsicle,’ without regard to the fact that both of them are popsicles and are precisely the same,” Dellaverson said.
In a statement Thursday morning, the union referred to the popsicle analogy as an “absurdity.”
Chatting in the lobby of MTA HQs Thursday just as negotiations were getting underway, MTA Chief of Policy and External Relations John McCarthy took the analogy further.
“If you don’t pick between the popsicles, you know what happens?” McCarthy said. “They both melt.”
Alfonso Castillo has been reporting for Newsday since 1999 and covering the transportation beat since 2008. He grew up in the Bronx and Queens and now lives in Valley Stream with his wife and two sons.
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