Need D.C. Worker-Rider Unity vs. Racist Metro Bosses’ Attack

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 1 — A bloc of Metro transit workers challenged the Metro board during public hearings tonight as the bosses continued to give workers and riders the choice between losing an arm and losing a leg, i.e., either support cuts in service and layoffs or an increase in fares.

The Metro workers joined dozens of riders in condemning the public hearings as a charade to pretend that the politicians, bureaucrats, and managers who run Metro care about riders and workers. On the contrary, they turn a blind eye to the on-the-job deaths of workers from unsafe conditions and somberly intone that some sacrifices (by workers!) will be needed. Their strategy (supporting the big capitalists) demonstrates that to create a safe workplace and decent standard of living, our class must smash their state and create a communist, worker-run society that serves only working class needs and dismantles all forms of capitalism.

Sharpening Fascism — The Shape
Of Things To Come

Jackie Jeter, the president of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 689 showed up at these hearings but remained mute, consistent with her refusal to seriously take on the biggest issue facing Metro workers in generations — the fascist gang-up by the courts, politicians, and Metro management on the new contract. If the attack is unanswered it will hasten the end of Metro as a flagship job for U.S. transit workers.

An arbitration panel set the terms of the final contract after negotiations deadlocked — strikes are illegal. In the past, arbitration decisions ended Metro labor disputes. Workers have never liked arbitration since it is biased in favor of the bosses, but given the historic non-struggle character of our union’s leadership, we have usually had to accept it. And this arbitration award was a net loss for us — a tiny pay increase offset entirely by substantial give-backs in healthcare and retiree benefits.

But this time, the Metro bosses took the unusual action of challenging the arbitration panel in court to demand even further concessions from the workers! They kicked us while we were down, and they won! (See box for the details of how the capitalist “legal” system made this happen.)

This attack is a part of a national trend of bosses attacking the working class without regard to past precedents and agreements. Capitalism is in crisis. The ruling class needs money for endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to bail out the banks and other financial institutions and to invest in its businesses. Given these bosses’ priorities, there is no money available to maintain the living wages and benefits of working people. And so the bosses take off the gloves of past concessions to workers’ struggle and use whatever weapons they can find to drive down our wages, be it the courts, legislation, racism or terror. In this case, the attack on the mainly black workforce of Metro shows the racist nature of capitalism — the most super-exploited workers are the first to suffer in a capitalist crisis.

Union Leadership — Vacillating,
Fearful, And Complicit!

Jeter previously had told workers to simply “hold fast,” and at a special meeting of Metro workers at the union hall she continued to put forward a “wait-and-see” attitude.  When challenged by several angry workers, she tried to intimidate them by saying how dangerous it would be to have a strike, how they wouldn’t get paid and might lose their homes.

One worker declared that many Metro workers had already lost their homes, and if we did not fight back, many more would! She then backtracked, claiming that she would support a strike if the International did. But she knew full well that the International would never support a strike at Metro because it would be illegal and the International would be found in contempt of court and fined.

In short, Jeter is maintaining her reliance on the very courts and politicians that are screwing us, and refusing to mobilize the only force that can have any effect at all, mobilized anti-racist militant workers’ power!

Build PLP Leadership At Metro To
Hasten Revolution!

The bottom line of recent developments at Metro is that the bosses have upped the ante in their racist treatment and attacks on Metro’s predominantly black workforce. They believe the growing racial divisions in our society can be used to their advantage. To resist this attack we must overcome the divisions between riders and Metro workers, between us and other unions, and the divisions between documented and undocumented workers.

As we unify our class to resist the latest attacks, we can build stronger class struggle against the bosses and lay the foundation for revolutionary struggle against the entire system of capitalism. To do this, militant workers must create a new communist leadership at Metro to guide the process of building revolutionary struggle against capitalism and all of its racist, imperialist, and sexist attacks on the world’s workers, including those of us at Metro itself.

This is a fight of our class against theirs. We are the ones who must defend ourselves and fight collectively for our class interests. As we do this, we will be able to build the PLP to make communist revolution and abolish the capitalist system that enslaves us. J

Bosses Manipulate Own Rules to Screw Workers

On March 15, 2010, the Federal District court in Maryland ordered that parts of an arbitration award that settled a contract dispute between the union and management be sent back to the Arbitration Panel to bring it in compliance with the National Capital Arbitration Standards Act (NCASA).

The judge ruled that those parts of the original arbitration award that favored Metro management would be immediately implemented. So much for the neutrality of the courts! These included higher health insurance costs, the elimination of retiree health insurance for anyone who is hired after January 1, 2010, a one year wage freeze at the start of the contract and a 2% bonus instead of a wage increase the first year.

Those parts of the award (the 3% increases in the last three years of the contract and the preservation of the current pension system), which were minor concessions to the workers, were sent back for review and will most likely be negated. Not even crumbs for workers!

The judge gave very specific instructions to the arbitrators. He said it was illegal to base a wage increase on the other major transit properties in the United States, even though this had been the practice for at least the last 60 years. He ruled that the arbitrators had to use the provisions of the NCASA, which requires that the panel consider the ability of the local jurisdictions to pay the increases and the pay scales of similar jobs in the region only.

He also instructed the panel to examine the pension proposals Metro had made on cutting the high-four-final earnings formula, reducing the post-retirement escalator clause for pensions, and requiring employee contributions to the plan in light of the NCASA. Again, more significant losses for the workers!

The NCASA was passed in 1995 by Congress and signed by President Clinton explicitly for the purpose of cutting labor costs at Metro. Although the law has been on the books for 15 years, Metro has not forced a contract to arbitration because they feared the workers might rebel if they tried to change an arbitration award. Apparently they no longer have that fear. The times are changing, fascism is growing, and so it’s clearly time for us to restore and increase their fear through sharper struggle and go on to smash their system!