SAN FRANCISCO, July 16 — Once again, the San Francisco mass transit (Muni) drivers are leading Bay area workers in class war.  For a second time they rejected a give-back contract with a resounding two-to-one vote, 994 to 488.  These NO votes show the potential for Muni drivers to stick together and act in their class interest, a terrifying possibility for corporate San Francisco.

Drivers’ vote defied the combined forces of the city’s labor leaders, the Democratic political elite, and San Francisco’s downtown big business interests. Labor leaders publicly denounced the drivers. Meanwhile, local billionaires campaigned against city worker pensions (Fortune Magazine, 6/13).

Corporate money passed a City Charter amendment, Proposition G, which specifically attacked the drivers’ salary formula as the way to “fix Muni.” Muni management boasted that it would save $41 million from union concessions.  Corporate-controlled media promoted vicious, anti-working-class lies, many of them coded against black and immigrant drivers. All of these forces joined the standard fascist chorus: “We need shared sacrifice.”

Pushing the fraudulent ideology of all-class unity, the leadership of Transit Workers Union (TWU) Local 250A had recommended the contract package as a “win-win.” Here is what the workers are slated to “win”: a pay freeze, big cuts in full-time jobs and transit service, reintroduction of part-time work, and the weakening of worker rights to allow speedy firing.

On June 13, an “independent” arbitrator used Proposition G to shove the rejected contract down the drivers’ throats. The arbitrator had the full backing from the union leadership, which worked to sabotage any real strike preparations.

The media attacks fueled intense anger and resistance among the TWU membership. Many members devoted their time and energy to turn out the NO vote, hoping that the credible threat of a strike would make management back down.  Activists forced the leadership to call a strike authorization vote and passed a resolution against binding arbitration.

As many rank-and-file leaders now recognize, a NO vote is not enough. With workers now saddled with the contract, new debates are raging:  Can we really do job actions or strike independent of the union?  Will the courts save us from Prop G?  How can we mobilize to overcome our fears and divisions?  How do we unite with passengers and other Bay Area transit workers to make this a class war against corporate San Francisco?

Despite the threat of firing and other reprisals, activists see the need for militancy and tighter organization within the membership. When the union is siding with the bosses, workers cannot afford to wait for an official go-ahead to sanction their next move. 

Muni workers need to unite in mass strikes and demonstrations with working-class passengers.  Local 250A’s path of legal action — playing the bosses’ game by the bosses’ rules — is a dead end. Communist leadership is needed to fight for workers’ power and to get off the reform politics treadmill, where bosses will always be free to take back the crumbs won in yesterday’s struggles.

‘Shared Sacrifice’ Is Coded
Racial Scapegoating

Presently, Muni drivers are 80% black, Latino, and Asian, many of them immigrants. Since the 1980’s, growing numbers are single parents, most of them women.

Racism and sexism have always lain at the heart of Muni contract negotiations and city elections. As one driver with relatives in the South told CHALLENGE, “Racism is worse here than I ever experienced in Alabama.” As the driver noted, it has made no difference that departing executive director Nate Ford (who’s leaving with a $384,000 severance package) is black. During the recent negotiations, Ford was part of the management team that spent $100,000 on a PR firm to leak stories that attacked drivers. This created a hostile, racist, anti-worker atmosphere where passengers complained that some drivers were “rude” and “overpaid” and “don’t even speak English.” 

The new Muni contract neatly dovetails many aspects of racism. The transit agency plans to bring in part-time drivers to eliminate up to 7.5% of full-time jobs and cut the pay of current drivers. Muni used to offer jobs where black, Latino, Asian and immigrant youth could move up the economic ladder. Now incoming workers will face full-time bills with part-time pay. This system forces them to accept these conditions with a gun to their head; their alternative is unemployment. Meanwhile, service cuts targeting mid-day and off-hour transit fall hardest on those with the lowest incomes, another example of institutionalized racism. Poorer, geographically-isolated neighborhoods are sacrificed to bolster rush hour “trunk” lines leading to downtown businesses. Profits, as always under capitalism, come first.

Muni management, like all servants of the capitalist class, works overtime to divide workers with racism. In the short term, this strategy gives the bosses the cover they need to destroy the drivers’ standard of living and impose inequitable service cuts. Over the long haul, it’s an essential tool for the rulers to maintain an economic system based on social control and profits for the few. Reform victories cannot change that fundamental system. We need a communist revolution to replace capitalism with a society run by and for the working class, where mass transit will take all workers where they need to go.

“It’s disgusting,” said a Whittier mother of the Chicago Public Schools’ (CPS) latest attempt to demolish the community center and library known as “La Casita.” Last fall, the Whittier parents kept the building open with a heroic and grueling 43-day sit-in. After following all CPS stipulations on how to keep the center open, La Casita parents were surprised when demolition workers showed up with permits. This shows that no matter how hard workers fight, the bosses will lie, cheat and steal to get what they want. Regardless, the parents quickly jumped into action to stop the CPS demolition.

The next day, with the demolition crew scheduled to arrive at 6 AM., the Whittier parents, with support from the community, mobilized 60 workers, teachers and students to begin a new sit-in. Only one demolition worker showed up at 6:30 AM, scouting the area to check on the protest. A PLP member and a La Casita mother attempted to win this worker’s support. He refused. With true working-class solidarity, the Whittier mother gave the worker her phone number, saying that while the bosses aren’t coming for your neighborhood now, they will be soon, and we can help.

At 7:45 AM, the Chicago KKKops blocked off all roads leading into La Casita. In response to this fascist attack, PLP members and allies went door-to-door in the neighborhood informing residents about the situation, trying to get them involved in the fight-back. This made many sit-in’ers feel more confident that no matter what CPS and the KKKops did, we would respond.

At the heart of this struggle are the CPS’ lies. They planned to build a library in the adjacent school by cutting in half two classrooms that are already overcrowded, with 30 or more students. Additionally, this second-floor library would be inaccessible to handicapped students since the school has no elevator. A CPS spokesperson pretended to care about the students’ well-being, saying it doesn’t make sense to have services outside the school. Yet CPS refuses to renovate the school “cafeteria” where students eat in a basement with sewage water running on the ground.

The mass media has helped to spread pro-CPS distortions, stating, “Parents protest construction of library” without giving the parents’ side of the story. However, it makes sense that the bosses’ media would further the bosses’ interests against the working class.

PLP will continue to lead, and be led by, the valiant parents of La Casita in order to save the center from demolition. Yet we must fight the cause of this and all working-class struggles: capitalism. To do this, we ask La Casita parents and friends to join PLP to fight for a communist revolution. Only with

East Orange, NJ, July 12 — “Can’t you see what they are doing to us? Listen to these people we need to start fighting back,” yelled an angry black worker standing in line to collect his monthly welfare check.  He was one of hundreds exposed to PLP’s ideas as we organized over 30 students and workers to rally in front of the Essex County Development Center. 

Racist Cutbacks and Unemployment

As the ruling class continues to spend more money on imperialist wars across the globe, the working class is facing more and more cuts.   A recent study by Brown University put the cost of  “post 9/11” wars at around $4 trillion.^[1]  Meanwhile 300 General Assistance (GA) clients lost their Emergency Assistance benefits.  Thousands had their “benefits” suspended without notice (while still eligible) pending state review. Even those that do get GA get only $140 a month!

While the bosses talk about unemployment being at 9.5% in NJ, that number is at least doubled for the mostly black and Latino workers of Essex County.  In Newark it is over 20%.  This is why PLP calls it racist unemployment.  While it hurts all workers, it is always worse for black, latin and immigrant workers.

Meanwhile, the Democrat controlled State Legislature voted to force thousands of public employees to pay huge increases in their pension and health care coverage contributions. 

While the workers and their clients real interests are to unite against the bosses’ tremendous attacks, many are motivated by a lack of class-consciousness and see the person on the other side of the glass as the enemy rather than the bosses who profit.  This is not a coincidence.  The capitalists spend billions promoting racist, anti-working class ideology so that workers don’t see who their real allies are. 

Workers welcome CHALLENGE and PLP

As we sold CHALLENGE to the workers waiting to get into the building, it was clear from their comments that they saw the Republicans and Democrats as no more than attack dogs for the bankers, bondholders, and billionaires who are profiting from this.  Last year alone, the banks received almost $3 billion.

PLP showed that, besides just attacking the Republicans and Democrats, we must smash capitalism, the main cause for these attacks.  We exposed the racist cutbacks and called for clients and workers to unite as the first step towards building a communist revolution.  Many of the workers eagerly took CHALLENGE.  As the crowd got more and more energized, the cops tried to stop our rally but with no success. One woman came running out saying, “[The cops] wouldn’t let a guy in because he had one of your newspapers.  They made him throw it out.  But they didn’t see mine cause I put it in the pile of other papers.”  After she said that the workers on the line folded up their papers and put it in their pockets so they wouldn’t get taken away.

Many workers also left their contact information and urged us to keep in touch. This has given us a chance to build a base amongst the many unemployed workers here in NJ.  Through base building and class struggle our aim is to win many of these workers to be leaders in our party.

^[1] http://news.brown.edu/pressreleases/2011/06/warcosts

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The battle against the Metro transit bosses and sellout union leaders is heating up.  PLP members at Metro used a union-called town hall meeting for workers and riders “to get input” to expose the sellouts and have radical conversations with fellow workers about the need for communist revolution.

 Party members testified that a strike at Metro would help all D.C. area workers, including Metro riders, resist today’s racist offensive against workers. Those statements from both Metro workers and riders got the loudest applause of the meeting, and helped build an attitude of rebellion that opens the door for building the PLP at Metro and throughout the community.

Although support for a strike to resolve our contract dispute is wide spread among riders and drivers, the union leadership is strongly opposed to any work action by members of ATU (Amalgamated Transit Union) Local 689.

Since strikes by transit workers in D.C. are illegal under the bosses’ laws, the union president is afraid to lead a strike.  She fears it would bankrupt the union and she would wind up in jail. Without a plan to win a strike, many workers are afraid of losing their jobs if it fails.

Many workers have illusions about what a strike can accomplish.  Some believe that if we strike, the bosses will be on their knees begging us to come back to work.  This is an unlikely scenario. They will try to hit us hard, and we must be prepared to hit back!

PLP’s job is to help people overcome their fears of a strike as well as give a realistic estimate of what it takes to advance our interests under current conditions.

Part of helping workers overcome their fear of striking is having a party organization which has the support of the workers and a plan to move forward.  Most of the groundwork for this has been done. Now it is time to consolidate this base into the Party by helping our brothers and sisters gain a clear vision of a lifetime struggle to destroy capitalism and replace it with OUR power, workers’ power.

A strike will not end the bosses’ domination of us, but a strike can give us good training in how to fight. Workers are terminated all the time without just cause at Metro.  There is no reason to expect Metro would not attempt to continue these policies during a strike.  The difference is that we will be fighting back in a mass way to advance our goals. Through sharper struggle against the bosses, we will be able to see the need to build a new kind of society where workers collectively run things  — communism — so that we can get off the treadmill of constant attacks from bosses.

For a strike to be successful, strengthen the union, and build greater class consciousness, the racist divisions that exist in our union must be overcome.  Black, Latino, Asian, and white workers standing side by side in a fight against the bosses will be a strong signal of our ability to win against the bosses in the long run.