NEW YORK CITY, April 15—The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) bosses are continuing their racist and life-threatening policies of creating an unsafe environment for both riders and workers of the NYC subway system. These attacks are about maintaining the profits of Wall Street banks and businesses. The MTA is  reducing train service, leading to crowded trains that will recklessly expose riders to the coronavirus and increase the wait times between trains.
Communists in the revolutionary Progressive Labor Party (PLP) are in the midst of the struggle organizing for rider-worker unity and for communist revolution to smash the MTA bosses, union misleaders, and this entire racist, sexist, imperialist capitalist system!
Bosses and union misleaders in bed
During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, transit bosses reduced service on all lines, initially blaming the reduction on their own workers (of which over 150 have died due to the MTA’s lack of preparedness) rather than the 90 percent reduced ridership.. Since then, service has been restored to most lines, but the racist bosses took the opportunity to cut jobs on the busy C and F lines.
Instead of building a mass, united fightback of transit workers and riders, Transit Workers’ Union (TWU) Local 100 leadership showed they are deep in bed with management. They are supporting the bosses’ plans for cutting the scheduled runs along a train line (“jobs”) that created the reduced trips to begin with.
In response to rank and file workers pressing the issue during an online employee town hall on March 12, Interim New York City Transit President Sarah Feinberg claimed the cuts were “minimal in scope.”
A look at any subway platform during rush hours exposes Feinberg's racist lies. Ridership is returning, platforms are crowding  again, and fewer cars are carrying more passengers. March 11 marked a  record for the single highest day ridership since the pandemic began, which has already been surpassed  again. (Gothamist, 3/13) Workers' safety remains on the chopping block so the bosses can hoard money, playing with our lives.
Union misleadership: train to nowhere
The naked racism of this crisis was exposed during a recent lawsuit between Local 100 and the MTA, with the MTA telling the mostly working-class Black and Latin riders calling out  the line cuts and crowded trains to accept them. But when mainly white, wealthier Long Island Railroad customers complained about crowding on their trains after service cuts, the MTA immediately reversed them (Gothamist, 3/9)!
Though transit bosses have agreed to restore service on the C and F after a lawsuit that the union dragged their heels in filing (Gothamist, 3/31), that is no guarantee workers are permanently safe: the agreement is verbal only, and not on paper.
Despite receiving billions in federal aid (PIX 11, 3/11), the transit bosses remain committed to cutting service to pay the debts to their Wall Street benefactors, while TWU Local 100’s misleadership carry their bags and enable it all. Transit workers and riders need to join together with  PLP and smash these crooks and their union misleadership stooges!
MTA bosses blame workers for racist neglect
Currently, seven track inspectors are suspended without pay as the MTA, along with the inspector general’s office, scapegoats workers over its horrid safety practices, and pushes for automation and cost saving.
The track inspector’s job is the most important track job in the system, as they walk hundreds of miles of subway tracks collecting data on which tracks need repairs. The track inspector division is made up mainly of track inspectors and two foremen whose job it is to oversee the inspectors’ work.
When the MTA recently moved to a phone-based system of reporting defects, the bosses didn’t ensure the old data written on physical cards was transferred into the new system. Now the bosses are using this excuse to blame the track inspectors for the problems they reported in the past! Track inspectors are on a race to report the old issues before management claims lack of data to say they are not working, and are punishing and suspending track inspectors. The union leadership is accepting these write-ups laying down; not one union representative close to the leadership wanted to represent the workers being suspended.
The system is highly in need of repair. Every time there is track work needed, it causes delays in subway service which the MTA bosses don’t want. There is a system of how things are reported: “P3” being least serious to “P1” meaning the track must be taken out of service. P1s are intentionally avoided by foremen, and if a track inspector believes there’s a P1, a foreman typically reinspects the same track and downgrades it to a P2.
Communists in transit believe this attack on workers is an opportunity to build unity with the riding public and expose the MTA bosses’ policy on safety. It’s time to expose the reports and conditions that management let slide and didn’t repair. It’s time to expose that while the track inspectors report safety issues, the management bosses decide on what gets repaired — and most of the repairs are like band aids on a bleeding artery.
Struggling with coworkers
Comrades active in the MTA and Local 100 have been pushing PLP’s militant anti-racist politics with our coworkers. The bosses have used the pandemic to further poison workers’ minds with more racism, and we’ve encountered many down here who believe that the solution is voting and more cops on trains.
But contradictions are everywhere! At the same time, these same workers have a fire burning deep inside them all from the racist treatment they've endured from transit bosses. We build PLP in transit so that communist leadership can spread the flames of fightback and revolution we need to control the transit system in the heart of U.S. imperialism. Struggle by struggle we can turn the tide against the bosses, and build a Red Army to smash them for a communist world for workers to run! JOIN US!