Conflicts at our transit union meeting have been really heating up. For the past three meetings attendance has doubled and pushback against the union's deceptions is sharp. Our union representatives (reps) and chairperson had to answer why there was no meeting the past two months (July and August) during the finalization of a new contract and a general pick (where all workers in one department must choose a new job title, hours, and location) looming over our heads. This union meeting we made them answer us which resulted in the longest union meeting we've had, which was three hours. With this added anger and frustration with the union, we're learning how to strike back by declaring motions (creating a new rule). We have no illusions about the union's rules or laws to support the workers. Workers in the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) understand that these attempts at reforming the union are mainly a way to create opportunities to show our base the limitations of the union when the union fails to offer a real solution which is communism.
The first motion we made was in June, right after the union got our summer meetings canceled by having their pawns show up and vote to cancel the summer meetings. This was during the contract negotiations where we, the workers, had no idea what was being discussed at the bargaining table at the board meetings with the transit bosses. The chairperson in our sector of the union used to be on the board but got voted off by the other board members. And someone is supposed to report on the minutes (topic of discussion) from the board. So a worker asked, "So there's nothing we can do about this?" The chairperson replies, "Yes, you can make a motion". So then, we made a motion to remove elected officials who are at the board meetings but don't attend our monthly meetings to report on the minutes of the board meetings. We felt proud that we had accomplished something after years of not knowing how to provoke change in the union. Nevertheless, we knew this wasn't the end of our union struggles but a pathway to the right track of base building.
Our last union meeting was in September where we learned that our motion had to be voted on by the workers who went to morning meetings as well. So be it. The more workers know about the motions the better. It was the workers who made other meetings and shared ideas of more motions to make. So we made three more motions that night. The first was to prevent future summer meetings from being canceled, the second was to provide every new union official with the phone and emails of the other union leaders so they could stay in contact which was another excuse they gave to not have an answer to our questions. The third was to grant the board members a minimum of 48 hours to fully read a new proposal before voting on it. Our chair said: ‘They only get 15 minutes to read a motion or rule before voting on it.’ The union misleaders always have an excuse as to why they don't know something or why they couldn't find an answer to our questions, which is just code for leave us alone, stop asking us questions and we're not here to help the workers. But these motions will help bring their lies to light. So we will find out the results from the board at our next meeting, said the chair.
Our last meeting in October was when we learned that not only did the board members not vote on our motions, but they hadn't seen them at all. Not even surprising. The union reps said, "it was a timing issue." Immediately the workers looked hopeless. We should've planned better to combat their lies and deceptions. But we have another strategy to unite workers which is to create an antiracist committee to support workers affected by racism which we would connect to workers in Gaza. Even if it won't be approved by the union misleaders, comrades and transit workers will take leadership over it. Especially if workers respond to this calling.
We know this is a small start, and it's not an active fightback, but it's a way for workers to begin to reclaim their power, to have the workers talk publicly about racist conditions on the job and overseas. Most workers want to take action but when we have union leaders that shut down our concerns it makes us feel like there's no changing the system. It would really be awesome to get the workers in a room to brainstorm about combating racist attacks on our class. Stay tuned for the next update on this struggle.
