DC transit workers protest racist working conditions

WASHINGTON, DC, January 23—For two hours a multiracial group of 50 Metro transit workers and supporters, including members of Progressive Labor Party, held a picket line in front of Northern Bus Garage in Washington, DC.   With chants of “Workers united will never be defeated!” and “If we don’t get it, Shut It Down!,” Amalgamated Transit Union 689 workers upped the ante in their contract struggle. Capitalism leaves workers no choice but to strike, even to keep gains that we had already won in the past, let alone to win new improvements. Only a communist system run by the working class would remove that necessity by ridding the world of bosses who profit from our labor.
The workers of the Metro Transit system have been without a union contract for over 18 months. Management wants to impose a three-year wage freeze, increase our contribution to our health insurance, and eliminate Metro’s contribution to pensions for new employees. They hope to get away with this outrage by relying on racism directed against the largely Black workforce. But many white workers are also affected, and multiracial unity can defeat this attempt.
The Washington regional transit system serves DC, Maryland, and Virginia and needs a major overhaul. Years of deferred maintenance have caused breakdowns, deadly derailments, and smoke incidents. The local governments refuse to tax the businesses that rely on transportation of their employees to pay for this maintenance, and instead cut workers’ wages and raise fares to make the working class pay.
The action at Northern Garage is the first in a series of coming actions to prepare the members to fight back. The traitorous union leadership has assured management that this action would not lead to a strike. But the picketing rank-and-file workers sent the opposite message, which is taking hold throughout the system.
Following the action, the workers debated whether to rely on local politicians to protect our interests (always a losing proposition) or to rely on ourselves, on other workers, and the riding public by organizing militant actions. PL’ers plan to increase the distribution of CHALLENGE among these groups to build the PLP at Metro and throughout the area. This will help answer this question in favor of a grassroots fightback and direct action. These are the building blocks of a revolutionary change to abolish capitalism and put the working class in the driver’s seat of a worldwide communist system.