NEW YORK CITY, January 25 — “We are not going to back down or give up! We will see this thing through to the end!” exclaimed a striker as school bus drivers and matrons continued to brave the freezing cold on the picket lines. The spirit and militancy of the workers are unmistakable. They see clearly what they’re up against and are determined to stand up to billionaire Mayor Bloomberg and the bosses who are trying to void the job security provisions in their contract, won by a strike in the 1970s. They hail from all over the world, including Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe. Many have a deep understanding that workers need to fight back.
Almost every worker on the picket line will agree that while they might have seen a strike as a last resort, now that it’s on, they’re in it to win it! At one of the major sites, cars and trucks are honking all day in support as workers from local stores brought coffee to the workers. The weather has become dangerously cold, but the struggle continues!
The Bosses’ Media Lies
The media, including the liberal New York Times, has vilified them, portraying them as lazy or uncaring. A Times editorial (1/22) applauded Bloomberg’s declaration “that the next round of contracts…will not include job security,” which the billion-dollar Times corporation says is a good thing. The NY Post ran a front-page article attacking the strikers with the headline “BUS TARDS!” They’ve been bashing the strikers by spreading a big lie that “greedy” union workers cause the big difference in cost between workers here and those in other cities. While there may be differences in pay rates, the really big difference in cost results from the “no-bid” contracts billionaire Bloomberg has handed out to “connected” bus companies. These contracts often serve only a few students and cost the city more.
Bloomberg is giving a weekend crash course to train scabs to break the strike. He is ready to sacrifice safety by replacing drivers and matrons with decades of experience in helping children with special needs.
The other big lie is that these workers don’t care about the students. Nothing could be farther from the truth! In fact, much of the discussion on the line is about how various students are doing.
PLP Welcome Here
PLP members have been greeted enthusiastically from the strike’s first day when a group of high school teachers and students marched up to the picket line chanting, “Same Struggle, Same Fight! Workers and Students must Unite!” Each time we joined the line, the strikers cheered our group for the solidarity we brought to them. We were quickly made to feel welcome by this international, multiracial group of men and women who, in many instances, have worked for decades in the student transport industry.
As the strikers clapped for us, we in turn clapped for them and told them their willingness to fight back helped all workers, ourselves included. This led to a good discussion of the current period. Those of us who are retired pointed out that the bosses, especially Governor Cuomo, have been threatening to get rid of pensions, so eventually we’ll all be under the gun. In small groups and in one-to-one discussions, we all agreed that throughout the U.S. there’s a general attack by bosses on our class.
We’ve distributed CHALLENGE each day that we picket and asked the workers what they thought we should write about the strike in upcoming editions. Many were angry about attacks on them by the media and politicians. They said reporters came to do interviews but turned off their tape recorders when strikers didn’t say what the reporters wanted to hear. One worker was furious that billionaire Bloomberg — who violated the term-limits law to buy a third term — was saying the strike was illegal. We’ve had lots of opportunities to discuss communism and why we think class struggle is a necessity but that revolution is what all workers need worldwide.
Support the Strike; Stop the Scabs!
Many strikers are awaiting a decision by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to see what direction the strike might take. But, of course, the NLRB is notorious for taking the bosses’ side.
We in PLP call on the entire international working class — union members, employed and unemployed, and students — to support these workers by raising money, getting support resolutions passed in their organizations, joining the picket lines, bringing food and coffee to the strikers and, most important, bringing revolutionary communist ideas to the struggle.