My name is Eric Josephson. I’ve been a Trackworker for almost 22 years. As a shop steward and former Track Division Vice-Chair I have always stood up for my co-workers. I have fought and still fight the Track bosses daily, especially on safety questions.
The key test for all candidates in the Local 100 elections is where they stand on our strike. Our strike was a magnificent display of working-class power – until our leaders sold it out. Had we stayed out and spread the strike, we could have won.
I am the only candidate in Track Division who consistently stood for an all-out strike for a no-giveback contract with big improvements in wages and job security. I helped build the strike and walked our picket lines with my co-workers last year.
While Toussaint kept us in the dark during the strike, I joined others in writing for and distributing Revolutionary Transit Worker (RTW) newsletter on the picket lines. Its brought the latest strike news and a fighting strategy to thousands of transit workers who had no other source of information – to the shame of the Local leadership and most of the dissident forces.
I stood and continue to stand against Toussaint’s contract sellout. I worked for a “No” vote twice. To this end I joined together with various Local members, despite disagreements on other questions, and without hiding these disagreements. I worked and still work against arbitration and against the capitalist politicians. All of them from Pataki to Spitzer to Bloomberg to Clinton avoided, criticized or outright attacked our strike, our union and Local President Toussaint.
Unfortunately, RTW only has the resources to run one person in Track Division. But my campaign is the only one focusing on transit workers’ main concern: mass, militant workers’ struggles to win contract gains and stop the MTA’s takeback offensive. As the accompanying article explains, the main opposition slate in the Track Division election, Rail & Bus United, offers no alternative to Toussaint’s record of sellouts to the bosses. Therefore I’m asking for trackworkers to support my campaign for the positions of Executive Board Member and Track Division Chair.
The contract fight has turned into a setback for us. But it isn’t over. We can regain our fighting strength and build a leadership to take our struggles forward.
But we can’t fight to defend Trackworkers without fighting to defend all transit workers. That’s especially clear a year after our strike and with our contract still unresolved. Many of us are still plenty angry, but frustrated and disappointed after Toussaint’s betrayal. Let’s make this election the start of a new fightback!
If elected, I will hold the other elected officers’ feet to the fire, fighting for them to defend transit workers’ interests. I’ll keep the membership informed of the union’s activities and what the bosses are up to. Most importantly, I’ll work to mobilize the union in struggle against the bosses around these five key points:
The Local must oppose arbitration and demand a contract with big wage hikes, full pension refund and full retiree health coverage with no layoffs, givebacks, trade-offs or increased or new paycheck deductions, and no fare hikes or service cuts. The Local must fight Taylor Law fines, jailings and interference with our union dues. We should start with well-prepared mass protests. We should demand that other unions support us: we should go to their ranks with leaflets, not only to the leaders. Through a series of rallies, marches and other mobilizations we should rebuild our confidence and fighting spirit till we are again ready to strike.
Almost every year, track and other workers die or suffer serious injury as a result of management’s unsafe work conditions. I’ll fight to mobilize the ranks in mass actions that shut down unsafe work conditions. And I’ll fight to commit the Local to shutting down the entire system – subways and buses – in immediate response to any more deaths due to unsafe work conditions. That’ll force the bosses to make our work safe. I’ll also fight for one-year, time-limited picks to be voted on by the membership, so management can’t use picks to their advantage.
Our strike made the MTA and NYC government more cautious about attacking workers, despite Toussaint’s sellout. This shows that Local 100 can lead the fightback against pay cuts and other attacks. By shutting the city down, a transit strike could win the support of the whole working class in the struggle against job losses, pay cuts, budget slashing and racism. It could lead toward a general strike the could really unite the working class against the bosses’ attacks. And we could smash the Taylor Law forever.
That also means giving no support to the politicians of the two capitalist parties, the Democrats and Republicans, who stab us in the back every time. Instead, it means relying on workers’ own power to strike and win.
As the economy falls into crisis, the capitalists are whipping up wars abroad as in Iraq to secure U.S. business interests and intensify their exploitation of the masses of the so-called “Third World.” At home, they’re escalating racism and particularly anti-immigrant attacks to keep the working class divided and exploited.
Under Toussaint, the Local has officially taken positions against the war on Iraq and in defense of immigrants under attack, but has done nowhere near enough to back this up with action. I’ll fight for the Local to mobilize in mass actions against these and other ruling-class attacks in the future.
At General Membership Meetings Toussaint denies the ranks the right to raise and discuss motions and take binding votes. Last year he stuck us with a strike motion that gave him the power to call it off. This allowed him to cut his sellout deal. I’ll fight for really democratic membership meetings where the ranks have the right to raise, debate and vote on motions and decide all the big questions facing the union.
As my co-workers know, I’ve always been proud to explain that I am a revolutionary socialist and a supporter of the political group the League for the Revolutionary Party. Our views that the working class’s struggles must lead to the overthrow of the capitalist profit system and that a revolutionary socialist party is needed to lead our battles are summarized in the accompanying article in this bulletin. I hope that my election campaign and RTW’s ongoing efforts to take transit workers’ struggles forward will interest more of my fellow workers in learning more.
But you don’t have to subscribe to my socialist perspective to vote for me. I expect many workers will vote for me, as they have done in the past, because they know I can be trusted to always stand up to the bosses and politicians as well as the bureaucrats that try to sell us out, and because they support my program of mass struggle for workers’ interests.
Do not make an “x” in the box for any slates running in Track Division.
Instead, look on the right-hand side of the Track Division ballot. There you will see a box beside my name, ERIC JOSEPHSON, and the word INDEPENDENT. Make an “X” in that box.
If you wish to vote for any other candidates in Track Division, make an “X” only in the box by each individual candidate’s name, not the box for the candidate’s slate.
If you vote for Eric Josephson for Track Division Chair, do not vote for any other candidate for Track Division Chair. If you vote for Eric Josephson for Executive Board Member, vote for only 1 (one) other candidate, if any. (I am not supporting any slate or any other candidate in Track.) If you vote for Eric Josephson and for a slate in Track, or for individual candidates opposing Eric Josephson, your vote for me and the other candidates will be null and void.