We shocked the bosses and politicians with our powerful, united strike against the MTA’s anti-working class and racist attacks. A year later, transit workers still don’t have a contract. But the slates running in the Local 100 elections are more interested in slinging mud at one another than taking a clear stand on our strike and offering a way forward for our struggle.
This sad state of affairs at the top of our union isn’t only the result of the candidates’ personal failings. The reasons are deeper than that. The bureaucrats contesting this election see no alternative to the capitalist profit system we live under. They fear the power of the ranks when we are mobilized in struggle. As a result, they cannot imagine any perspective other than negotiating over how to best compromise with the bosses and “lobby” the politicians (i.e. give the politicians our dues money and beg them for favors in return). So it is no wonder that to distinguish themselves they concentrate on personal attacks and muck-raking – just like the capitalist politicians who are their role models.
As transit workers know, Revolutionary Transit Worker opposed Toussaint when he killed our strike after less than three days. We fought to spread the strike to win. We campaigned for a big “No” vote on the contract because of its givebacks like the proposed new healthcare paycheck deduction. When the contract was voted down, we fought to re-start Local 100’s contract struggle with a campaign of mass action for the Local’s original demands, including the pension refund owed to many workers. After Toussaint succeeded in shoving his contract down the members’ throats, we campaigned against arbitration and demanded the Local press our contract demands with mass action, beginning with big protests. RTW is proud of its record in the struggle.
With the big setback our struggle has suffered, it is understandable that many transit workers want a change in leadership. But an examination of the basic positions of the different slates shows that sadly, none of the slates deserve transit workers’ support.
If bitterness is not to turn into demoralization, the most class-conscious transit workers must unite on a political program which answers the crisis of leadership in the Local and the working class in general. That’s why we support Eric Josephson in his campaign for Executive Board Member and Track Division Chair (see box below). Only his campaign offers a clear strategy to take forward workers’ struggles against the MTA bosses and for the working class in general, against the capitalists’ economic attacks and against their imperialist war-mongering, rising racism and anti-immigrant attacks.
Our strike showed our power to bring the financial capital of the world to a crawl. We could have had the bosses and politicians begging us for a deal had we stayed out and spread our strike to other workers, beginning with those at Long Island Railroad and MetroNorth. Instead, the Toussaint leadership killed our strike after just three days without a contract. So much for “No Contract – No Work!” Then they agreed to unforgivable givebacks including a new healthcare paycheck deduction, gave up our December contract expiration date and accepted wage “raises” below inflation. They didn’t even ask for amnesty from Taylor Law penalties.
Understanding this, a majority of workers voted to reject the deal. The Toussaint leadership stomped on union democracy and called for another vote. Fearing that Toussaint & Co. would stick us with worse if we rejected the contract again, a majority of Local 100 members voted to accept the deal in the second vote. Again Toussaint & Co. refused to fight for our interests and allowed the contract to go to arbitration – and we’re still working without a contract!
Toussaint’s attacks on democratic control of the union by the ranks are notorious. Now the reason for this should be clear to all: because he and his henchmen’s power in the union is based on selling us out. Toussaint’s “One Union” slate doesn’t deserve transit workers’ votes. They deserve to be run out of office.
But the main opposition to Toussaint offers no alternative. The “Rail and Bus United” (“R&BU”) ticket is headed by Presidential candidate Barry Roberts. In the strike, he stood for a sellout at every turn. As an Executive Board member, Roberts voted against calling the strike in the first place. During the strike he and other MaBSTOA officers sent Toussaint a note saying we should have voted on the MTA’s last offer (with its horrible attacks on future employees’ pensions) and that we couldn’t hold out much longer. Then Roberts voted to end the strike, and to approve Toussaint’s sellout contract. Now Roberts and “R&BU” say they would have done things differently by staying on strike longer. There isn’t any reason to think this change of heart is anything but a “vote for me” ploy. “R&BU” cannot be trusted and do not deserve workers’ votes.
John Samuelsen, “R&BU’s” ambitious Secretary-Treasurer candidate, participated in Toussaint’s bureaucratic regime for years. He supported the last sellout contract, which saw real wages fall and gave away our no-layoff clause. He said he had no criticisms of the Local’s contract campaign prior to the strike, despite Toussaint’s refusal to mobilize mass contract rallies and his early hints at agreeing to givebacks.
Then Toussaint removed Samuelsen from the Maintenance of Way Acting Vice President post and from the Local payroll. Samuelsen opposed Toussaint’s contract without trying to mobilize against it. He stated at a Track Division meeting last spring that had he negotiated a contract which the members rejected the way Toussaint did, he would have dropped the clause the ranks didn’t like and instead shifted around the money to give the MTA the same amount by other means. This is the approach of collaborating with the bosses in selling us out, not fighting them.
“R&BU’s” current Track EB Member and candidate for Division Chair is Carlos Albert. A long-time associate of Samuelsen, as an Executive Board member during the strike he voted wrong on every question! He abstained on whether to strike, voted to end the strike and voted to recommend the proposed contract to the membership. Later he admitted that he had been wrong. But someone that confused can’t be trusted to organize the fight against the bosses.
The “Union Democracy” (“UD”) slate led by Ainsley Stewart is no alternative. On the Executive Board, Stewart voted not to strike and abstained on ending the strike. In his campaign so far he has said repeatedly that the strike was a bad idea. He opposed the sellout contract and often courageously stood up to Toussaint & Co. But he played a bad role in the vote “NO” campaign. He often got the facts about the contract wrong, which gave Toussaint an ounce of “truth” to his charge that the contract was misrepresented. Worse, Stewart spoke against the idea of another strike and floated the idea of agreeing to lesser givebacks like a flat-rate health care paycheck deduction rather than opposing them all. As an International Union VP, he remained on good terms with the International leadership which betrayed our strike.
The “UD” slate also stands for collaboration with the bosses’ government. Ainsley Stewart said, according to the Chief, that he would “reach out to the new governor and the Mayor” to “start with a clean slate and a balanced relationship.” The only “balanced” relationship transit workers can have with the Mayor and the Governor (the boss of the MTA) is relentless struggle against their anti-worker attacks.
“UD” Secretary-Treasurer candidate John Mooney actually voted the right way on each major question in the contract struggle: to strike, to stay on strike and to reject the contract. And he was consistently active in the campaign against the contract. But Mooney provides a militant cover for Stewart’s hopeless leadership. Moreover, Mooney is signed on to the lawsuit against the union filed by Barry Roberts, Stewart and others against Toussaint’s attacks on the elected Vice President’srights to represent their Division’s members. We need to fight Toussaint’s anti-democratic attacks, but such law suits open our union to the grave threat of attacks from the bosses’ courts.
The “Fresh Start” slate led by Mike Carrube has taken no clear position on the strike. “Fresh Start” favors decent demands against the bosses, but does not offer a strategy of mass struggle that could win them. Nor does it offer a strategy for how to fight now against arbitration and for our contract demands.
The “Independent Team” in RTO features some supporters of Rank and File Advocate newsletter. They were part of the New Directions campaign that led to Toussaint taking power but are now a pathetic shadow of their former selves. Their strategy of building a reform group in the union on an a-political program of vague militancy and unprincipled lawsuits against the union is what allowed Toussaint to use them as a vehicle to power.
Instead of learning from this experience, the “Independent Team” is moving further away from a program of militant working-class struggle. The main point distinguishing them from others candidates is their call to break Local 100 from the TWU International. The TWU International leadership scabbed on our strike. But what we need is to support a fight by all TWU members, from transit in New York to airline engineers across the country, to oust the corrupt International bureaucracy and unite workers in struggle – not to divide workers even more. The proposal to split from the International reflects a the “Independent Team’s” lack of confidence in the power of workers to fight the union bureaucracy.
In Stations, Marty Goodman is running an individual campaign for re-election to the Executive Board. In the strike, Marty played a tireless role in fighting for a winning strike and against Toussaint’s sellout. RTW supporters were proud to work with him in these efforts. But Marty is a supporter of the Socialist Action (SA) political group which doesn’t normally play such a good role – they usually do not so openly fight the union bureaucracy. But Marty continues other mistaken policies of SA’s like limiting his work in the union to a program of reformist militancy, saving revolutionary socialist politics for another time and place.
Because Marty’s work in the union has won him the support of workers who want to see him take forward the fight against the bosses, we critically support his campaign and call on workers to vote for him to put him further to the test of office. But we warn that Marty’s Socialist Action-perspective cannot answer workers’ needs for a revolutionary lead in the fight against the bosses’ capitalist system. Either Marty will break from SA to a really revolutionary perspective or the struggle will expose his and SA’s approach.
In 2005 the MTA bosses demanded outrageous givebacks on pension benefits for new hires and other attacks. They will continue to press new attacks in the future. This is because the capitalist profit system is in ever worsening straits and all bosses are being pushed to make the working class pay.
That’s also why the union bureaucrats consistently sell us out. They see no alternative to the capitalist system and enjoy a privileged position in it. Thus they oppose working-class struggles that may threaten the system and seek to cut deals with the bosses at our expense.
Mass working-class struggle can beat back the bosses’ attacks – for a time. RTW promotes a program of mass militant struggle that can unite workers against the bosses and win. But no working-class victories can last under this system that promises only worsening exploitation, poverty, racism and war.
But a world of peace, freedom and plenty is possible – a socialist society run by the workers, for the interests of all and not the profit of a few. RTW is supported by the League for the Revolutionary Party, a socialist organization that seeks to build a revolutionary socialist party leadership in the unions, throughout the working class and around the world to lead the struggle to overthrow the capitalist system. We hope more transit workers will join in a discussion of our revolutionary socialist perspective and how it can show the way forward even in our most immediate struggles.