Ever since we were forced to accept the last contract, the bosses and politicians have been eager to attack us. Private Lines owners offered a miserably small wage raise to their already low-paid workers. The MTA immediately announced they were planning to get rid of all token booth clerks’ jobs. Now we learn that they’ve been slashing their contributions to our Health Benefit Trust (HBT), threatening to bankrupt it. This last attack was allowed by a clause in Willie James’s last sellout contract.
The bosses will try to make us pay for the HBT’s bankruptcy every way they can. First, by large increases in worker contributions to cover the costs of health care. These will hit workers with families to cover the hardest. In effect, it will represent a big pay cut for everybody! Second, by significant cuts in health care itself, which will inevitably cost the lives of workers and family members! And third, by using the HBT bankruptcy to blackmail us into accepting massive broad-banding and other speed-up measures in exchange for partial refunding of the HBT.
A massive, militant rally against HBT cutbacks on March 28 can be a great step forward in fighting to defend our health benefits. But it’s not likely that one big demonstration will scare NYCT into backing down. It must be the first step that builds toward even more powerful action. Otherwise our efforts will be wasted – management will just sit back and wait for our anger to boil over and then press ahead with their attacks.
The bosses only understand one language – power. When thousands of transit workers rally together, we feel our potential power. We can see how strong we are, and realize that without us, the city doesn’t run. We literally have the power to shut the city down if we decide to. We have to be prepared to use that power if we’re going to beat back the bosses’ attacks. We have to be prepared to strike. The attacks are that serious.
Of course, we can’t jump right into a strike. Many members are already convinced it’s necessary, others aren’t yet as sure. The need to strike has to be sold to them and preparations made which will bring confidence. A strike isn’t a guaranteed necessity. Given our power, just the threat of such a massive shutdown could scare the bosses into a retreat. But showing weakness only invites attacks rather than avoiding them – not being prepared to strike tells the bosses they’ve got little to fear from us, and encourages them to take back more and more.
We’ve already seen how Liberty Lines only had to strike for one day before that private line’s owners backed down. The strike won significant improvements, including much higher management payments to their health insurance fund. Just imagine what we can win if we strike at the heart of the system.
In fact, Private Lines workers in Queens, Brooklyn and the North Bronx have yet to win new contracts. Many are growing impatient with the negotiations’ slow progress, and saw that Liberty Lines won gains by striking, just as other Private Lines workers have in the past. If they go out, we should go out, and vice-versa. We would give each other re-doubled strength and enthusiasm!
Of course we do face the Taylor Law that bans strikes by public sector workers, and we saw how Giuliani used it against us in 1999. But Giuliani’s desperate mobilization of his cops and courts showed how terrified the bosses and politicians are of a transit strike. By shutting down the city and bringing profit-making to a halt in the heart of world capitalism, a transit strike would have the power to smash the Taylor Law and win our demands.
Now is a particularly good time for transit workers to strike. Almost all the other city employees – teachers, HRA workers and other Teamster Local 237 members and DC37 members – are working on contracts which expired up to a year ago. They could be encouraged to join us in a massively powerful general strike.
So we have every reason to say No Health Fund – No Work! Prepare to Strike!
Also, we know there’s plenty more wrong with the contract than the HBT cuts. Broad-banding in Car Maintenance is forcing us to work harder than ever before. Anti-union Workfare slave-labor has replaced full-time union jobs by forcing workers on welfare to work for below minimum-wage with no rights on the job and little or no training for future employment.
We have the power to force the bosses to make concessions. If we have to re-open the HBT clause of the contract, we should go ahead and demand the re-opening of the entire contract! If Willie James could re-open the last contract to give back our gains, there’s no reason why we can’t re-open the contract to get back what we lost!
Everybody knows our last contract was a fraud perpetrated against us by a union leadership that was secretly working with Giuliani while the Mayor mobilized the cops and courts against us. Because of this, our fight would get a lot of sympathy. In fact, the city workers currently working without a contract were screwed even worse by their last contract. Their union leaders rigged the contract vote for Giuliani. Now most of those union leaders have been tossed out of office and some are even in jail!
Unfortunately, the Toussaint leadership of the union does not favor such a fighting strategy. In fact they don’t seem to have any clear plan for the current crisis. In the other articles in this bulletin we go into greater detail on how they are quickly becoming more and more like typical trade union leaders – scared that struggle will jeopardize their privileged positions, and more comfortable meetings with bosses and politicians than with being on picket lines. That’s why they’ve been so slow to mobilize the membership, and why we can’t rely on them to show the way forward. That’s why it’s up to workers who see the need for mass struggle to lead the way.
Local 100’s leadership is currently talking about holding a general membership meeting in May. But that’s too late – union leadership admits the HBT will be empty by the end of March! A general membership meeting should have already happened in February, as we proposed in Revolutionary Transit Worker No. 1.
We should seize on the momentum of the March 28 rally and hold a general membership meeting in April. There, we’ll be able to discuss and vote on the way forward – rather than wait for the leadership to do something. Regardless of what they think about the idea of preparing to strike, all workers who see the need to adopt a strategy for fighting to defend the HBT should raise and support motions in Division meetings and on the Executive Board for a general membership meeting in April.
Supporters of Revolutionary Transit Worker want to join with all workers to support the call for a general membership meeting in April. We’ve prepared an example of the sort of motion that should be raised. And even if we win full funding of the HBT, we’ll still need the general membership meeting to discuss the other important issues facing us.
During the last contract negotiations in December 1999, more and more workers saw the need to strike, culminating in the unanimous strike votes in the afternoon general membership meeting. At that time, transit workers didn’t have a leadership ready to carry out the decision to strike, and we still don’t. Then, as now, supporters of Revolutionary Transit Worker were the only organized group arguing for strike action. We can re-capture the militant spirit and confidence transit workers had back then and more! But what’s most important is that militant workers who see the need to support the idea of preparing to strike begin to link up with one another, start organizing together, sharing their ideas and coordinating their efforts. We hope that workers who agree with what we have to say, or just want to talk about these ideas more, will contact us. Together, we could have a great impact on the big battles ahead. Contact us now!