Racism In S.F. Transit, Driven By Capitalism; Muni Workers Fight Back

SAN FRANCISCO, July 16 — Once again, the San Francisco mass transit (Muni) drivers are leading Bay area workers in class war.  For a second time they rejected a give-back contract with a resounding two-to-one vote, 994 to 488.  These NO votes show the potential for Muni drivers to stick together and act in their class interest, a terrifying possibility for corporate San Francisco.

Drivers’ vote defied the combined forces of the city’s labor leaders, the Democratic political elite, and San Francisco’s downtown big business interests. Labor leaders publicly denounced the drivers. Meanwhile, local billionaires campaigned against city worker pensions (Fortune Magazine, 6/13).

Corporate money passed a City Charter amendment, Proposition G, which specifically attacked the drivers’ salary formula as the way to “fix Muni.” Muni management boasted that it would save $41 million from union concessions.  Corporate-controlled media promoted vicious, anti-working-class lies, many of them coded against black and immigrant drivers. All of these forces joined the standard fascist chorus: “We need shared sacrifice.”

Pushing the fraudulent ideology of all-class unity, the leadership of Transit Workers Union (TWU) Local 250A had recommended the contract package as a “win-win.” Here is what the workers are slated to “win”: a pay freeze, big cuts in full-time jobs and transit service, reintroduction of part-time work, and the weakening of worker rights to allow speedy firing.

On June 13, an “independent” arbitrator used Proposition G to shove the rejected contract down the drivers’ throats. The arbitrator had the full backing from the union leadership, which worked to sabotage any real strike preparations.

The media attacks fueled intense anger and resistance among the TWU membership. Many members devoted their time and energy to turn out the NO vote, hoping that the credible threat of a strike would make management back down.  Activists forced the leadership to call a strike authorization vote and passed a resolution against binding arbitration.

As many rank-and-file leaders now recognize, a NO vote is not enough. With workers now saddled with the contract, new debates are raging:  Can we really do job actions or strike independent of the union?  Will the courts save us from Prop G?  How can we mobilize to overcome our fears and divisions?  How do we unite with passengers and other Bay Area transit workers to make this a class war against corporate San Francisco?

Despite the threat of firing and other reprisals, activists see the need for militancy and tighter organization within the membership. When the union is siding with the bosses, workers cannot afford to wait for an official go-ahead to sanction their next move. 

Muni workers need to unite in mass strikes and demonstrations with working-class passengers.  Local 250A’s path of legal action — playing the bosses’ game by the bosses’ rules — is a dead end. Communist leadership is needed to fight for workers’ power and to get off the reform politics treadmill, where bosses will always be free to take back the crumbs won in yesterday’s struggles.

‘Shared Sacrifice’ Is Coded
Racial Scapegoating

Presently, Muni drivers are 80% black, Latino, and Asian, many of them immigrants. Since the 1980’s, growing numbers are single parents, most of them women.

Racism and sexism have always lain at the heart of Muni contract negotiations and city elections. As one driver with relatives in the South told CHALLENGE, “Racism is worse here than I ever experienced in Alabama.” As the driver noted, it has made no difference that departing executive director Nate Ford (who’s leaving with a $384,000 severance package) is black. During the recent negotiations, Ford was part of the management team that spent $100,000 on a PR firm to leak stories that attacked drivers. This created a hostile, racist, anti-worker atmosphere where passengers complained that some drivers were “rude” and “overpaid” and “don’t even speak English.” 

The new Muni contract neatly dovetails many aspects of racism. The transit agency plans to bring in part-time drivers to eliminate up to 7.5% of full-time jobs and cut the pay of current drivers. Muni used to offer jobs where black, Latino, Asian and immigrant youth could move up the economic ladder. Now incoming workers will face full-time bills with part-time pay. This system forces them to accept these conditions with a gun to their head; their alternative is unemployment. Meanwhile, service cuts targeting mid-day and off-hour transit fall hardest on those with the lowest incomes, another example of institutionalized racism. Poorer, geographically-isolated neighborhoods are sacrificed to bolster rush hour “trunk” lines leading to downtown businesses. Profits, as always under capitalism, come first.

Muni management, like all servants of the capitalist class, works overtime to divide workers with racism. In the short term, this strategy gives the bosses the cover they need to destroy the drivers’ standard of living and impose inequitable service cuts. Over the long haul, it’s an essential tool for the rulers to maintain an economic system based on social control and profits for the few. Reform victories cannot change that fundamental system. We need a communist revolution to replace capitalism with a society run by and for the working class, where mass transit will take all workers where they need to go.