NEW YORK CITY, October 16 — TWU (Transport Workers Union) Local 100 representing most of NYC’s transit workers sent 20 buses to the October 2 “one nation” rally in Washington, D.C. However, many buses were largely empty. The international TWU “contingent” of mass transit, airline and railroad workers was nothing more than a distribution point for lunch, T-shirts and temporary tattoos. Many Local 100 members, including recently laid-off transit workers, were motivated to go to fight for jobs and against MTA bosses. But the rally was nothing more than a big pre-election photo-op for Democrats.
Preparing for the rally, in September PLP protested at two of five MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) public hearings on fare hikes, confronting the MTA Board face to face. Along with a few spirited transit riders and workers, PLP pointed out that layoffs, service cuts and fare hikes hit the city’s mainly black, Latino and immigrant workers the hardest.
PLP’s goal on October 2 and in confronting the MTA Board was to build mass, anti-racist class struggle for communism among students, workers and soldiers internationally. We knew that the rally was a scam to persuade U.S. workers to vote for agents of super-rich Wall Street capitalists and that the MTA board’s mind was made up on fare hikes. But PLP struggles to influence workers and riders towards uniting for international communist revolution.
Speakers confronting the Board enabled more and more workers and riders to learn about the role of Wall Street banks in causing the budget gap, service cuts, layoffs and fare hikes.
At the hearings crowds chanted, “Fire the MTA”; “Cut the banks, not the buses”; “No cuts, no war, the cuts are for the war”; “They got bailed out, we got sold out. Make the bosses, take the losses.” Speakers defied the three-minute time limit. The crowd demanded more time for speakers who attacked the MTA Board. The unions had none of that energy in D.C. on October 2.
At the Bronx MTA hearing on fare hikes, PLP distributed transit supplements tying U.S. mass transit cuts to the bosses’ need to finance their wars against other imperialists, the richest most powerful capitalist ruling classes. Blind and wheelchair-bound speakers cited the Board’s disgusting disregard of disabled passengers.
One wheelchair-bound woman testified she had to call the fire department to get carried out of the station in the middle of the night because laid-off station agents were not there to assist her.
Nearly every speaker exposed the hearings as an MTA scam to pretend the MTA “listens to the people.” One pointed out that although some local politicians spoke against the hikes, capitalist money backs both the MTA Board and the politicians.
Another speaker, a one-time real estate lawyer and urban studies expert, admitted that real estate developers calculate exactly how much property values rise from being close to mass transit. He proposed that instead of hiking fares the government tax landlords based on their proximity to mass transit.
In both hearings and at the October 2 rally PLP made contacts with transit workers. While we failed to organize as many workers as we wanted to attend the hearings or the October 2 rally, we did not sit out the struggle.
The working class may not win reform struggles for jobs, higher wages or lower fares, even with militant fight-backs. But the recent battles against these transit layoffs show that unions organize only lawyers and politicians, not workers. The recent MTA lawsuit to overturn Local 100’s legally-binding 2009 arbitration award reveals that when bosses break their own law, they get away with it because they, not workers, hold the dictatorship of state power.
Only a May 4 break-away rally that surprised both Local 100 leaders and cops delayed station-agent layoffs. It was a short-lived victory but only mass class struggle achieved anything at all. On May 4, only hours after the break-away demonstration, a judge placed a temporary injunction against layoffs until the MTA held public hearings on station-booth closings.
PLP struggles consistently to use all these struggles as schools for communist ideas and actions.