While leaving transit workers in the dark about safety enforcement, Local 100 President Toussaint has lobbied the bosses’ Democratic and Republican Party politicians for improved track safety laws. One such improvement is to require full flagging on all tracks adjacent to tracks where employees are working.
RTW supports this and similar laws providing for the protection of workers. But we note that there are many such laws on the books that have proved to offer us little protection – while pro-boss laws are rigorously enforced. We also note that while Toussaint and Secretary Treasurer Watt intrigue behind closed doors with the bosses’ politicians to pass some compromised law, they leave the workers passive. They and the politicians are playing with our lives.
Any serious workers’ leaders would not wait on the politicians’ pleasure for our safety: they would immediately raise up the ranks to enforce safety measures (like full adjacent-track flagging) in the field. And safety-conscious workers should not wait for either politicians or union officers – they should fight to impose these measures now. Because of the general outrage over Brothers Boggs and Franklin, the relationship of forces is in the workers’ favor, and the bosses are acting very safety-conscious.
If the politicians now see the workers enforcing our own safety laws, they will run to pass protective legislation. They’ll start to worry that we might one day think that the working class should make all the laws and run all society, instead of the capitalist politicians who now play with our lives.