PL Transit Workers Ally with Riders, Lead Fight vs. Racist Bosses

WASHINGTON, DC, June 17 — The DC Metro transit bosses continue their racist attacks on the working class, both in the community and on the job.  They continue to push for service cuts and for privatization, which will hurt both the Metro workforce and workers throughout the region.
The Progressive Labor Party’s immediate strategy is to hit back on two fronts. In the short term, we are building an alliance among the riding public, Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 689, and other unions for jobs, lower fares, better service, and a single wage-and-benefit package for all transit workers. We are also fighting against DC Metro’s racist background checks. This alliance has the potential to push back these attacks and shut the region down. Our longer-term strategy is to win workers to a communist understanding of the need for revolution to destroy the entire capitalist system.
Some progress has been made on both fronts. Six people attended May Day from the committee that is organizing against the background checks. Seven workers have joined a Party study group to learn more about communism.  Several of them distribute CHALLENGE and advocate communist ideas with their friends. 
DC Metro policies on criminal background checks for new hires and current workers have come under renewed attack from both community organizations and rank-and-file workers.  Community groups in southeast Washington and active public health workers are circulating petitions to demand an end to these racist policies. Even the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is entering the fray by suing BMW and the Dollar Store for using background checks to discriminate against black workers. After much prodding by PLP members and other workers, Local 689 is coming around to engage in this fight. 
The DC government continues to advance its plans for privatizing parts of the city’s Metrobus system. In response, the union turned out at a budget hearing on expansion of the DC Circulator, the public-private service being used to replace Metrobus.  After our opposition was ignored by the DC City Council, union members went to a meeting of the Mayor’s Task Force on Privatization, which was cancelled before we got there.  Instead of marching to a nearby transit hub and talking to the riding public about the threats of privatization, the union leadership dispersed the group over PL members’ objections. 
The union leadership continues to operate without a strategy to fight privatization. PLP’s approach is to build towards militant action and shut down the city. But the union leadership fears that our plan would jeopardize their cozy relationship with the city’s bosses and politicians. 
On the collective bargaining front, DC Metro continues to demand contract concessions from the union, using threats of further privatization and the loss of jobs. The union leadership’s stance is either to cave in to these concessions or to let the bosses’ arbitrator decide.
All of these attacks are an opportunity to intensify the class struggle.  For the first time in many years, workers see the seriousness of the rulers’ attacks. They understand that the union leadership has a losing strategy.
How can the Party come out ahead in this situation? When we sharpen the struggle, workers see how racism divides us. They see that the bosses have the power to beat us down in any reform struggle. Only by building our Party with the outlook of ending racism and seizing state power from the bosses can we really win. Our victory comes with building the revolutionary Party. If we can beat back the bosses’ immediate attacks in the process, so much the better!