WASHINGTON D.C. January 16, —Almost 100 transit workers in Loudoun County, a well-to-do Virginia suburb of Washington, DC, walked out on January 11 over an insulting contract offer by Keolis, a transnational transit company contracted by Loudoun County to cut costs. Keolis has proposed a two-tier wage system for bus operators with a difference of over $13 per hour. This is a clear divide and conquer strategy, a hallmark of capitalist bosses' efforts to weaken the working class and deepen the exploitation of workers.
The bosses think they can get away with such tactics because many of the workers are immigrants. But workers chose antiracism instead,with 96 percent of workers voting to strike and set up strong picket lines, crushing that idea. Communists in the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) have been welcomed as they strengthen the picket line and share CHALLENGE newspapers with the transit workers.
The workers are resisting the two-tier system and are fighting for better health benefits and pensions. This is the fourth recent strike of workers in Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 689 in the D.C. area against private contractors that operate public transit vehicles. The workers—Black, Latin, Asian, Middle Eastern, and white, men and women, immigrant and U.S. born—have all shown great unity in the struggle, all the more necessary because the ATU International, which has intervened in this strike, has typically accepted substandard contracts in the past to save money by reducing the costs of strike benefits.
The ATU 689 workers formed a contingent in Leesburg’s annual Martin Luther King parade on January 16, enthusiastically chanting their demands, and then returned to the picket lines. PLP members joined with them all day, sharing CHALLENGE and deepening ties for ongoing activities. On the picket line, a transit worker told us that Keolis is owned by Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français (SNCF), a French company that in World War II transported over 76,000 Jews to Germany on their way to genocide in Auschwitz (only about 2,200 of deportees survived the Holocaust) (Atlantic, 3/18/2014). It looks like these bosses are still Nazis!
The spirit of solidarity shone this week beyond the strike itself. The picket line is next to an adult men’s detention center. A young man was released from the jail, and in freezing temperatures and strong winds, was trying to walk home wearing only a t-shirt and flip flops. The strikers on the picket line called him over and a worker gave him the jacket off his back while other workers found gloves and cash to help him get home. This is the character of our class, and it is such feelings of class solidarity that will lead to overthrowing this entire racist capitalist system.
As we go to press the company has made its “last best offer” and canceled further negotiations. The struggle continues.