DC Transit: Strike wins reform, workers need revolution

Washington, DC, May 5—Circulator transit workers in  the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 689 forced RAPD, a private contractor of the public Metro Transit system, to increase wages 25 percent (still below parity with other transit workers), make modest improvements in health coverage and retirement, and limit contracting out. One hundred and sixty mainly Black workers struck solidly for three days (only one scab) after months of management stonewalling negotiations. Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members in the ATU were intimately involved in this action, organizing and leading pre-strike rallies and marching on the picket lines, with other comrades bringing sandwiches and CHALLENGE newspapers to the three Circulator garages.
Limits to reform
This advance in the class struggle may only be temporary, though, as the transit bosses are exhausting the federal funds they got from the Covid-19 appropriation, and management counter-attack will surely happen. With contracts of hundreds more transit workers expiring in two months, the strike preparation lessons from this battle will be valuable. While fighting for reforms may improve conditions for our class for the moment, history shows us that reform gains are fleeting and with every capitalist crisis these gains are always reversed and supplemented with attacks on our class.
The most valuable lesson for workers is to measure the success of strikes, not just as an improvement of our immediate conditions, but as a practice run to prepare us for the day when we overthrow this rotten system that forces us to negotiate the terms of our misery and exploitation. Strikes are schools for communism and through them we unleash our revolutionary potential. Derailing the bosses profiteering, we put our ability to shut down capitalism and regain control of our labor to the test.
PLP’ers in the ATU jump-started the process of growing our revolutionary potential, ensuring every striking worker received a copy of CHALLENGE. Our participation in the strike as workers and communists deepened PLP’s ties to the most militant, class-conscious workers. We urge fellow ATU workers to keep fighting, keep striking, but don't stop there! Join and build a revolutionary party, the PLP, to lead the overthrow of capitalism and its wage system, must become the primary step in the class struggle in transit.
 Strike rooted in communist fightback
The ATU strike was triggered by  management’s trickery and intimidation tactics on workers, but we said, “Lies and tricks will not divide, workers marching side by side.” First they refused to seriously negotiate for months. Then, when we voted 96 percent to strike, they essentially offered a nickel, and said they wouldn’t be available to negotiate for almost a month. Then, to disarm workers from going on strike, they offered to negotiate the day before the strike. Workers said forget that, we’re striking. Suddenly management came to the table with some concessions. Nevertheless, the  Circulator strike, representing a fraction of the 8,000 strong active union members, was partly a fruit of these decades of organizing.
PLP has played an important role in the class struggle at Metro. In 1978, PLP members organized for over a year and led a wildcat strike that literally shut D.C. down for a week. Since then, PLP has fought for intensified class struggle against racism and capitalism and for building a revolutionary communist movement at Metro. PLP members were also active supporters of the 2019 transit strike at Cinder Bed Road, and workers at that site joined the picket lines for the Circulator in solidarity.
Building a stronger PLP club, with new militant transit workers, at Metro is needed to address the capitalist horrors that lie ahead, from imperialist war to inevitable savage racist attacks against the working class in the transit industry. Join us!