School Bus Workers Need Red Ideas, Not Bosses’ Union Flunkies

Brooklyn, NY April 17 —   One of the drivers who had been a rank and file leader during the school bus strike called excitedly to say that a NY Post column had exposed the lies that NYC’s Mayor Blumberg and his schools commissioner had told when they claimed that the “EPP” job security clause in ATU 1181’s contract was illegal. The bigger question is why didn’t the union leaders of 1181, the Transit Workers International Union and New York City’s Central Labor Council do anything to expose these lies and stop these attacks? We think it is because the labor movement functions as the junior partner of the bosses and their system.
 As Challenge has reported, ending EPP was a major part of the bosses’ plan to cut the wages of school bus workers. Workers are both furious at and resigned to the 15% cut in wages, loss of paid time off during winter and spring break vacations and the increase in their share of the costs of health insurance premiums. Most of all they see the possibility of mass firings of senior higher paid workers when the new school year begins in the fall. What would have happened if the leadership of 1181 had called on its members to stop scab buses? What if the international union had supported the strike with cash for strike benefits that would have offset the lost wages workers missed for a month? What if the central labor council had called for all its member locals to join mass picketing of bus barns?
Then a real fight would have been made over the bosses’ plans. This kind of fight will never happen if we look to the enemies in our midst (the union flunkies) for leadership. That’s why we need to build a workers movement around the communist ideas of the Progressive Labor Party.
We urge our brothers and sisters who led the strike earlier this year to join us in the streets on Saturday April 27. This is the day the working class reviews its forces and celebrates its accomplishments. Your leadership provided a great inspiration to workers and students all around the world. You will feel the excitement as we march in the streets of Flatbush with workers and students from around the world.
We learned from you how international our struggle is as we met and talked with your members from Haiti, Eastern Europe, Dominican Republic, Italy, Puerto Rico and all over the world and how you united to combat the bosses attacks. We were impressed by the commitment and perseverance that we saw in this battle. But this is a lifelong battle and that is what Mayday represents-the necessity of workers to fight back and make revolution.
This struggle is international as workers all over the world face the same attacks. This is a day to make our voices heard and our presence felt. Let’s take the lessons we learned from the strike and go forward –we will win when hundreds, thousands and finally millions of workers embrace these ideas.