Last night and this morning, I got some anguished, even desperate messages from some New York Carriage Horse drivers and owners.

One was from the grandson of Irish immigrants. He told me his grandfather was driving through a small town in Northern Ireland one Spring day a long time ago and some British soldiers stopped him, punched him, spit on him and tried to take his horse. He left for America the next month, he said, because he knew that in America, nobody could insult and intimidate him in that way or ever trouble or threaten his horse.

“I’m glad he’s not alive to see what is happening to us,” his grandson told me, “he would be lost in this America, where they can take your work and horse away from you for no reason other than that a rich man gave them money.” There were several messages like that, one from the son of Russian immigrants, one from an Italian driver whose grandfather immigrated to American in the late 1950’s to raise his family in peace and safety. “They have taken our dreams from us, “he said, “I won’t let my son be a carriage driver, I don’t want him to ever go through this.”

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The first message I received this morning was a cry for help:

“Can you explain why the Teamsters Union agreed to this bill? (Bill number 573, to move the carriage horses to Central Park, restrict the number of horses and their hours, eliminate the pedicab trade. The bill will be voted on by the New York City Council this Friday.) Who in  his right mind would have signed this? We carriage drivers have never given our consent to this bill, most of us were never consulted. And why do the Teamsters refuse to speak up and go against this bill now when they know almost all of us are against it, and that it would destroy us?.”

“We are frightened and confused,” messaged another driver today. “We only want to go to work and take care of our horses and our families, we make so many children and visitors and other people happy. This is very sad. Can you tell us why the Teamsters agreed to this?”

I will do my best, I said.

In politics, silence is often much louder and more revealing than speech. Since it was reported last week that the Teamsters Union and the mayor’s office had reached an “agreement in principle” to move the carriage trade and restrict it to a new stables in Central Park and work only within the park itself, the Teamsters Union, which represents the carriage drivers, has been silent.

I take the drivers request seriously and I talked to the people I know who are close to the story in New York and there is great confusion and uncertainty about this, but some things are pretty clear. I don’t know what the Teamster’s ultimate motives are, I can’t speak to that, I am not in their heads or at their meetings. I do know they have kept the mayor off of the back of the carriage trade for some time and were instrumental in fending off the effort to ban the carriage trade last summer.

It is clear that the Teamsters made a deal with the mayor’s office without fully consulting all of the people in the carriage trade.  Or, it seems, caring much about how they felt. Some medallion owners agreed to the deal, they loved the idea of moving to Central Park, selling their stables to real estate developers,  and renovating the new stables at taxpayer expense. They jumped at the chance to be rid of the pedicab industry, which has given them fits with their ubiquity and sometimes shady competitiveness.

One official close to the negotiations told me that the Teamsters made the best deal they thought they could possibly make, given the mayor’s obsession with the carriage trade. “Nobody really understands how irrational this man is, how remote and disconnected from reality he is. It’s like dealing with a crazy man, no negotiation we have ever had has been like this, he is off-again, on-again, sometimes bends, mostly doesn’t, and never meets face to face with anyone. Even his own close advisers have no idea what he is thinking or why. He just seems obsessed with this issue, it is really beyond reason.”

The Teamsters, their eyes on many upcoming negotiations, not just one, are extremely cautious about what they say in public. There is always the next round to face.

From a union perspective, it did seem like a good deal. The 68 medallion holders would get to keep their licenses and their horses, the pedicabs would be gone, the future of the industry would be assured. The agreement, one Teamsters official told me is a long way from being banned. But as the other details of the agreement – the ones the mayor refused to bend on – leaked out, opposition grew, not only from the carriage trade, but from all over the city: newspapers, carriage horse owners and drivers, park lovers, pedicab drivers, most animal rights groups, good government advocates.

The Teamsters seem to have vanished from the firestorm raging over their own agreement. They are neither defending it, explaining it, or opposing it.

The silence of the Teamsters in the face of so much anguish and so many questions is telling.  One reporter who covers labor negotiations in the city told me “you have to understand that this is a small thing for the Teamsters, they do a lot of business with the city, they represent a lot of people. You can bet they got what they could get and decided to move on. They saved some jobs and got the best deal they could get.  That’s what labor unions do. They have moved on.”

But it does appear they have left the carriage trade and the drivers vulnerable, and very much in the lurch.

Several drivers told me that even the carriage trade lawyers were mostly shut out of the negotiations and did not know of the provisions to severely restrict the carriage trade and reduce the number of horses. The mayor has been operating in the back room on the carriage trade issue for two years, and it seems like the Teamsters joined him there.  Behind closed doors a deal  was done. A very old story in politics. We may not fully grasp the dimensions of this “agreement in principle” for a long time, if ever.

The poor pedicab drivers were caught in the crossfire, in the wrong place at the  wrong time, disposable bargaining fodder. So now, about 900 people and 100 horses will be out work, given the damage to both industries if the bill passes this Friday. Perhaps not such a good agreement in principle, and the carriage drivers who went along with it, have mostly flipped and seen that in many ways, the bill is just another means of banning the trade.

The new stables are unlikely to ever get built, if the bill passes, the stables will be forced to sell, and few owners or drivers can survive long under the noxious and restrictive proposed regulations.

It was a trap, and the Teamsters either fell into it or walked into it with open eyes. I can’t say I really know, at least not yet.  To date, only three entities are supporting this legislation: the mayor, the Teamsters Union, and NYClass, the strident animal rights group that has spent millions of dollars in New York (including many of those dollars on the mayor’s election campaign) to ban the carriage horses.  I see no report of any other significant public group in the city that supports this noxious legislation, especially now that is tied to a 30 per cent raise for City Council members.

The mayor may be arrogant, but he is not stupid. Or, given the outcry, maybe he is.

But you can connect the dots yourself.

Why on earth would NYClass, a group that has been so fiercely committed to banning the carriage trade, has spent millions in the effort, suddenly agree to keeping them there forever, and in the middle of Central Park? This is an organization beset by rabid and unyielding ideology, they have never negotiated, retracted an erroneous statement, admitted there was one moral carriage driver, believed one scientist, trainer or veterinarian, agreed to meet with the carriage trade, or softened their stance on abuse and overwork of the horses. Not once.

The reason for this seems clear to me: the proposed agreement would, in effect, ban the carriage trade, something NYClass understands but the carriage drivers are just coming to see.

“The mayor has given the City Council members cover,”  my city council source said of the mayor yesterday. “The Teamsters back the bill and are not lobbying against it, the mayor and the City Council Speaker strongly support it and NYClass supports it. Our backs are covered if we pass it. The only cloud on the horizon is the pedicab issue, they didn’t foresee the explosion about that.”

You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. The Teamsters cut a deal, and you can understand it by seeing who supports it and who doesn’t. That is how we end up seeing behind the closed doors.

The carriage trade surely bears some responsibility as well. They are a tribal collection of diverse and very independent and quarrelsome personalities, they have never identified or defined a clear goal for themselves in this conflict other than being left alone. The sad truth is that they are split, as always. There is no single leader of the trade, no universally-supported position other than to survive.

They have never even managed to organize a strong public protest against the harsh, unjustified and relentless campaign against them.

That has left an enormous vacuum for the mayor and the Teamsters or anyone else to fill. The trade left the negotiating to the Teamsters, and is now up in arms because they don’t like what the Teamsters have done.

Is all this hopeless? Not at all. This issue belongs in the courts, which is precisely where it is heading.  In America, we  go to the courts, not the streets, to resolve conflicts between an overreaching government and a persecuted citizenry. You can’t ask a judge for relief if you have not been injured, and once this legislation passes, the carriage trade will have clear proof of injury and threat. The mayor is, in fact,  irrational on this subject and the city has no legitimate public interest in destroying an industry that is profitable, popular, safe and law-abiding.

That means that under city and state law,  the new regulations are very likely illegal.

I told my carriage driver friend that it doesn’t matter any longer what the Teamsters did or didn’t do, or what the mayor wants to do or what the animal rights activists say or don’t say. The carriage trade, for all of its twists and turns, has great lawyers in Norman Siegel and Ron Kuby, they seem to grasp the civil rights and constitutional issues involved in this invented and corrupt crisis.

And there are many.  Civil rights are a class of rights that protect individuals’ freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations and private individuals, and which ensures the ability of individuals and organizations and businesses to participate in the civil and political life of the community, city and state without discrimination or repression.

In almost every way, the civil rights of the carriage trade and the drivers have been infringed upon by government, social organizations and, in this case, wealthy private individuals who have used money to alter the political and regulatory process.

It’s time to see beyond the back room and into the courts.

I told me friend this is no time to be sad, it’s a time to be mad in a clear and focused way.

The issue belongs in court, there is good reason to believe the carriage trade will prevail. Their cause is just, they have enormous support, and the mayor has, in some ways, done them a favor. He has exposed the unfairness and arbitrariness of his campaign against a private industry and forced his own hand.

They will have no choice but to stand in their own truth and be united and focused now.

I don’t think there is a lawyer in New York who thinks Bill 573 will stand.