SAN FRANCISCO, June 7 — As CHALLENGE reported in March, MUNI (SF mass transit) drivers rejected a “concession package” recommended by their TWU Local 250a Union leadership. This put a wrench in corporate SF’s plan to solve the transit deficit by cutting labor costs. Recently, Mayor Newsom said: “It’s critical that TWU step up and join every other labor union…by ratifying the $14 million in labor concessions their leadership agreed to…. These…would immediately reverse nearly three-quarters of the $28.8 million in service cuts.” (SF Chronicle, 5\21)

In addition, SF Supervisors are trying to mobilize voters against the drivers with two Charter amendments which attack their wage and benefit package.  The SF Chronicle editorialized (5/19): “…drivers haven’t had to lift a finger when it comes to easing MUNI’s  financial burdens…With its pay rates locked into the city charter, the union can continue to thumb its nose at city officials and riders.”

The Joint City Workers’ Committee of the SF Labor Council has followed the Mayor’s lead. They delivered concessions from all City workers but police, fire and nurses. The chairperson declared that his “primary work for the next few months will be to get MUNI operators to make concessions to the City.” This leadership puts some workers in a mental jail.  For example, an operator said, “Everyone is suffering so we have to give something up. If we just give a little, they’ll leave us alone.”

It’s the drivers’ strategic position and ability to bring the City to a halt that drives the corporate media and politicians in this well-planned media frenzy.

Ideas Are Changing

Drivers are furious. One said, “My dad would be rolling over in his grave if he saw what’s happening!” Another said, “Many of us were the pride of our communities, now we’re the bad guys.” Old expectations are dying. Others express a new urgency and some fear: “Before, I just came to work and went home to my family without thinking about the job. I left all that to the union; I can’t do that anymore.”

Appearance Is Not Always Reality

Since 1967, the City Charter seemed to protect the drivers. Wages and benefits are “equal to the average of the top two” transit districts in the U.S.  It lulled both the union leaders and many members into thinking,  “We automatically get raises, we don’t have to strike and we’ll sue.”  This so-called “guarantee” is what the City politicians want to remove to “fix MUNI.”  

As PLP members point out, no law, no City Charter can protect us from ever-increasing demands from the capitalist class.  They are squeezing more out of workers in this country to pay for wars for oil and competition with other capitalists worldwide. Productivity has doubled. This City Charter did not protect families from growing debt, foreclosures, shrinking purchasing power, deteriorating schools, or expensive health coverage. Because of  racism, this hit the predominantly black and Latino workforce and ridership particularly hard.

The Charter may appear to give us a break from fighting back, but the City powers will break it, find a “legal loophole” or change it when their economic necessity (profits) demands it. This is capitalism’s reality for the working class.

In the face of changing lives and these vicious attacks, drivers organized job actions which the union leadership sabotaged.  PLP members are in the class struggle while engaged in debates as drivers sort all this out. They are asking questions like:

Why do the union leaders interfere when we try to fight back?

Can the Charter or the government help us?

Who are our friends? Can workers organize solidarity?

Vote for concessions or VOTE NO and prepare to fight?

Can we strike? Will we win or lose?

Can we really destroy capitalism and is communism a viable alternative? J

(For further debate, see next issue)