NEW YORK CITY, October 30—At least 3,000 transit workers protested in the streets in a mass union rally outside the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s (MTA) headquarters in downtown Manhattan. Transit workers were opposing the bosses’ latest, racist contract offer. MTA bosses offered transit workers miserable two percent pay increases, wanted increased healthcare contributions, more part-time positions instead of full-time, and more years to top pay for new hires. And the leaders of Transport Workers’ Union (TWU) Local 100 had no plan to fight back. The rally resembled a festival with blaring music and a slick, self-promoting video. The backup plan was to appeal to Governor Cuomo, no friend of the working class (Wall Street Journal, 10/21).
No “fair contract” under capitalism
Progressive Labor Party members, who are active in the struggle, passed out leaflets and sold over 200 CHALLENGES. We explained that the MTA bosses and the TWU misleaders are both part of the capitalist system and under capitalism there is no such thing as a “fair contract.” Workers produce everything and we should receive and distribute everything. And this contract is racist.  The mostly Black and Latin transit workers in NYC have the lower wages, compared to their mostly white counterparts at the Long Island Railroad and Metro North.
 Those suburban systems move 89 million riders compared to 1.7 billion NYC passengers annually. This racist divide and conquer strategy is how capitalists exploit all workers. Only communism can end this exploitation. Under communism profit would be illegal and the workers would run all aspects of society, never having to beg for crumbs from the bosses again!
A festival, not a fight back rally
This rally resembled a festival more than a call to fight back because the leaders of TWU Local 100 are in bed with the MTA bosses and Democratic Party politicians! There was no fightback feel. One track worker mentioned that the union doesn’t even have a list of demands ready. He has no confidence in the TWU misleaders. Their claims that they’ll “shut it down” if necessary are false bravado. TWU president Tony Utano has a close relationship with Governor Cuomo, who enacted a new pension tier reducing benefits for newly hired state and local government workers (Reuters, 3/15/12.) Cuomo is the one pushing the MTA’s gutter racist fare beating campaign, criminalizing Black and Latin workers—which Utano, strongly supports (New York Times, 6/19). Both Cuomo and the union misleaders are also behind flooding the subways with thousands more kkkops, first to monitor transit workers to catch them “stealing time.” Now they blame riding workers who don’t pay the fare for cutting in on their profits. Riders are not the enemy of transit workers, the bosses are.
Union misleaders perpetuate sexism and racism
The union misleaders are also going along with the MTA bosses in perpetuating sexism. State and federal laws require breast-pumping stations for women workers, yet the MTA system has none. But the union hacks have reduced this to a bargaining chip, instead of fighting for it everywhere, from the job sites to the courts. Under communism women workers will never be discriminated against because sexism would be illegal.
TWU leaders are not organizing or winning workers to strike. The union isn’t strike ready, and not serious about exercising workers’ power in any way. The union leadership has shown its own reactionary, racist nature. When a Black transit worker fell to his death two years ago, Utano blamed it on him being “big” rather than blaming the MTA bosses for failing to replace a weak, out of date railing that could not support him. Meanwhile the MTA bosses are sending workers to their deaths. Instead of making cosmetic makeovers to stations they should invest in worker’s safety, but they don’t.
Our decrepit working conditions and treatment are other issues. Crew rooms are often filthy and unkempt. Transit workers sent to 2 Broadway face the harshest punishments for even minor operational incidents, and the union does little to address this. MTA workers do indeed have the power to shut this city down once they understand that workers don’t have to depend on union misleaders or their capitalist politicians.
MTA bosses serve the billionaire bankers
The MTA bosses will always be loyal to the banks they’re in debt to. This is why the system is forced to endure racist train and bus service cuts. Subway cars are filthier, because the MTA cut 66 slots for car cleaners last year (The City, 9/10), and they are planning more “terminal car cleaning cuts” through 2023. This is why the ridership will continue to endure fare hikes. The MTA bosses will keep reducing service wherever they can to keep filling Wall Street’s pockets. It’s typical capitalist greed, and workers are always in the crosshairs. The “progressive” Democratic Party state leadership that is presiding over these cuts is further proof that liberals are no allies of workers.
Fight for communism, working class power
We must understand that the fight for better conditions and pay is intertwined with the larger struggle to destroy capitalism. The ruling class MTA bosses couldn’t care less about us. Local 100’s ultimate interests lie with them as well. Transit workers are a critical cog in the bosses’ profit drive. The bosses love to scapegoat both transit workers and riders. The bosses depend on our division to keep their capitalist system going and their profits flowing.
Communists in the Progressive Labor Party want to unite all workers against all bosses into a revolutionary movement that destroys this racist and sexist system. We are for communism where working class power rules.