Ok, ok thats a bit of an exageration.

But according to Michael Goodwin’s New York Daily News column [How the TWU blew it](http://nydailynews.com/12-21-2005/front/v-echo/story/376627p-319815c.html), housing played a role in the Union’s misunderstanding of the MTA surplus.

The MTA showed a $1B surplus when it entered into contract talks with the union. The union claimed that they were entitled to get 8% pay raises because they created the surplus.

The housing boom created the surplus

The taxpayers
> shelled out hundreds of millions of dollars in
>taxes to subsidize the MTA. Portions of two
>fairly obscure state taxes – the mortgage
>recording tax and the property transfer tax
> – are dedicated to the MTA, and both
>turned in far higher than expected collections
>because of the real estate boom.

Goodwin makes several other points in this article but this was the first time I had seen housing tied to the TWU strike. A good read.