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MTA & Union bosses railroad workers with pathetic contract
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- 06 July 2023 151 hits
NEW YORK CITY, July 3—It's sellout contract season at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA) New York City Transit Authority section (NYCTA). The boss-loving TWU Local 100 misleadership hurt the workers who keep the city's trains and buses running.
As with just about any "contract" under capitalism, this one is a racist slap in the face to NYCTA's mainly Black and Latin workers. It provides pathetic, below inflation wage increases, does nothing to improve the challenging time off process for some departments, forces employees to work even more hours, and joins up with the bosses' for profit Medicare Advantage scheme. With imperialist war with China and Russia impending overseas, the MTA must satisfy its Wall Street debt owners off the backs of both its ridership and workers. Local 100 is all too happy to oblige them in that goal with this pathetic offering.
NYC subway workers, 170 plus of whom died from Covid-19 moving essential workers while the racist MTA bosses disallowed us Personal Protective Equipment due to fears of "public perception," must realize that there will never be a "fair” or just contract under a system that places profit over the working class. The only way for transit workers to get what they and all workers deserve is to join together to smash capitalism and fight for a communist revolution, on and off the rails!
Paying off debt on workers’ backs
Local 100 “leaders'' are performing their class role, working hand in hand with the MTA bosses, to repay the system’s $48 billion in debt to Wall Street bankers. Decades of neglect by the city’s bosses left the subway system in a decrepit state in the 1980s (Gothamist, 6/21). During this period, MTA leadership for the first time approached profiteering banks, all too eager to lend financial handouts. This ballooning debt has continually been used to finance new station expansions, train cars, buses and track, to be repaid through increased tolls, taxes and fares. Or in other words, by the working class!
Today, the amount the MTA will pay on this debt will represent 40 percent of its entire toll and fare revenue, a number that was less than four percent in 1984.
This means the bosses' banks have written blank checks to maintain the trains and buses in a barely good state of repair. And workers are perennially forced to endure the racist service cuts that come with this crushing debt. Those cuts are set to become even worse after ridership tanked during the pandemic, as the MTA admitted to its lenders in April (Gothamist, 6/21).
Now, with another racist fare hike on the horizon (New York Times, 5/22), which would bring in more money to finance bosses’ pockets and barely the system itself, Local 100 cannot avoid the contradiction inherent in every union today: it must partner in tandem with management to produce an agreement that harms both MTA workers and the ridership!
Forcing workers to toil more
The tentative agreement expands on an employee availability clause, introduced in a previous contract, to force employees to work an additional five days. Once this goal is reached, “the parties will implement gainsharing of any additional improvement,” according to the language. This means that the union will share these profits with the MTA bosses.
Employees who work in the Rapid Transit Operations (RTO) division, that includes train operators and conductors, already have to compete against their coworkers using an automated phone system 20 days in advance, just to receive a day off. Many times, these day-off requests are denied.
Many in RTO use their sick days–which are always granted immediately–as a workaround. Management is directly responsible for many MTA workers being out, imposing harsh disciplinary suspensions and medically restricting them and making them go through hoops to return. Many workers were also out sick during the pandemic’s worst days (Spectrum News, 3/24/20).
But of course, this clause makes no mention of those factors. And as long as the trains run, why would the bosses care about the well being of those operating them? A common demand that we have repeatedly expressed to the union in years past was for more “mental” health days. Many of our trips lack sufficient recovery time and the environment we work in can be mentally challenging at times. With the agreement, Local 100 not only is attacking the workers it represents, but the working class as a whole, as they will deal with a more tired operating workforce.
Contract privatizes Medicare for healthcare bosses’ pockets
The union is also joining city efforts to strip workers of government Medicare for the racist Medicare Advantage (MA) plan (see CHALLENGE, 6/10/21). The agreement, if ratified, would eliminate the traditional option and force MTA retirees to choose one of two MA plans. In response to a backlash, union bosses have released statements claiming that the two plans will not result in diminished service and will be better than regular Medicare. But we know that Medicare Advantage places control in the hands of for profit private insurance companies that are known to deny care in several instances (New York Times, 4/28). The switch would also save the MTA money, as the government subsidizes Advantage plans more than the traditional one.
Flyers promoting the contract have said that it has no givebacks, but this effort to sell out mostly Black and Latin retirees (which was included in the document of the MTA’s proposals given to the TWU in May) clearly proves they’re lying to the membership!
Fighting back
Even with the strong likelihood that most departments will ratify the contract, as has been the case historically, many of our coworkers have denounced it on online Facebook groups and in our crew rooms. This is an opportunity to use that working class anger towards something even better than a better contract. Progressive Labor Party members in transit have been active in discussing the contract with coworkers, pushing them to vote no in higher numbers than usual, especially in the RTO department. These conversations also allow us to bring up the Party as the only way to win in the end.
The MTA workers who transport four of the city’s eight million residents daily are in a unique position to strike a blow against the bosses who generate billions in profit from our labor and tell us we need to give back more concessions, when we gave the ultimate concession during the pandemic’s darkest days: our lives!
But the union leadership will always strangle that that potential, which is why we must fight for a workers’ world.
PAKISTAN, July 3—Pakistan is in deep trouble! Political instability, economic destruction, religious sectarianism, skyrocketing inflation, poverty, nationalism, racism and chaos are pushing the country on the brink of destruction thanks to capitalism, a system spiraling further into crisis, and escalating inter-imperialist competition. A former ruling party (PTI) was removed from the government through a vote of no confidence which resulted in tightened surveillance, state oppression, police torture and disappearances. Amid this political instability, PLP is trying to organize for communism.
Dangers of compromising with the bosses
Capitalist bosses are using various tactics to continue the exploitation of the working class. They use their puppets to scare the masses from even thinking about making a revolution. In the 1960s when the masses were angry with the capitalist system and trying to organize into a party (Communist Party of Pakistan) to overthrow capitalism, the soil was not ripe for a revolution and the party was very tiny.
So the bosses used their puppets to convince the party leaders that ‘it is good time to overthrow the government and make a revolution,’ which resulted in a failed attempt. Quickly all the leadership and dedicated members were arrested and blamed for conspiracy against the state.
Many of them were sentenced for life time imprisonment, some were killed and some left the country to find a safe place.
Again in the mid-seventies when the masses were fed up with the system, they started to join a newly formed phony Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), to bring change and get rid of exploitation. Progressive student leaders, union leaders, intellectuals and workers joined the PPP with the hope that these so-called progressive leaders will help them out of poverty, illiteracy and exploitation, promising land to the landless.
They were not revolutionaries; they just used the name of the working class and exploited the sentiments of oppressed people to take power but did not take any steps to ease the life of the working class.
The workers’ dreams of a prosperous and poverty-free Pakistan were dashed.
Today, as Progressive Labor Party (PLP) continues to spread communist ideas here, and continues to blossom, we are hopeful that one day we can destroy this rotten system once and for all, and replace it with a system where all workers are safe and can flourish.
Capitalist crisis and chaos
There is ongoing political infighting and crisis in Pakistan. Recently, when the political and economic conditions of Pakistan were calling on the poor working class to build a strong anti-capitalist movement, it was another bosses’ trap. The bosses galvanized Imran Khan and his followers to attack military installations, martyrs’ monuments, military and police vehicles and personnel.
This resulted in a strong retaliation from the state, attacking both the ruling class and the working class. The government banned internet services for several weeks and started to monitor every conversation over the phone or internet. Many innocent people were arrested because they had a telephone conversation with the people involved in attacking the military installations.
Imran Khan (IK) and his goons thought that attacking the military installations they could oust the military leadership, and they would get another chance to rule and bleed the working class dry. Firstly IK blamed the U.S. for “regime change” to get the sympathies of common people, but when he realized that U.S. bosses were angered by his blame game, he changed his tune, and begged them again for help.
A few days ago it was exposed by the defense minister in a TV interview that a rebellion against new military leadership and the newly formed government, was unsuccessful. Many military officers involved in this conspiracy are held by security forces. Now almost all the senior leadership of PTI left the party.
Amid the chaos of the Khan faction versus Pakistan’s military establishment standoff, the PLP is striving for international communist revolution. We are preparing the soil to ripen into an international communist revolution by organizing workers, peasants and students in our rank and file. We believe that only the working class and their party, PLP, can get rid of exploitation, poverty, inequality, slavery and injustice by forging an international struggle against capitalism. Long live international communist revolution!
May Day was celebrated with joy and revolutionary passion all over Pakistan. Workers, students and different trade unions organized May Day with banners explaining that we need to change capitalism with a system organized by the working class; from each according to abilities to each according to needs.
Capitalist bosses are greedy so they exploit us to work for their profit system. They want us to die in their imperialist wars while making profit for them. They want us to be exploited every minute of our lives as we work from dawn to dusk. And then they also want us to protect their exploitative system.
But Progressive Labor Party organizes the working class to wage war against the bosses, and one day lead a communist revolution.
Capitalist misleaders
It is ironic that the majority of workers cannot participate in May Day processions because they have to work all day to earn something to feed their families. Daily wagers, contract workers and farm workers cannot leave work to celebrate May Day either because their masters don't allow them or they have to get some wage to meet their needs.
Trade union misleaders are here just to protect the interests of bosses; they are unable to bring something good to the lives of the poor working class. They are getting a monthly fund from every worker by promising that they will bend the bosses down to accept the demands of workers but behind the curtain they are bargaining with the bosses to get more advantages for themselves.
Time after time these misleaders are being used by the bosses to cool down the anger of poor workers by assuring them on behalf of bosses that ‘your demands will be accepted in a few weeks or months’! Workers are still deprived of every facility which is supposed to be provided by the factory owners to the workers according to labor laws.
Communist leadership
In May Day processions and seminars our comrades criticized the prevailing system and its defenders; those are usually union misleaders. Our comrades explained that these so-called union leaders are not essential to leading their struggle against the capitalist system. We pointed out each time workers organized a strike unleashing their class anger through militant sit-ins to close down production, then these misleaders bargained with the bosses to break the strike.
Our comrades also explained the difference between criminals and leaders; they said we need communist leaders who believe in the power of the working class, not the criminal-minded gangsters who are using the name of workers to get benefits for themselves. These criminals are in the guise of leaders, as they torture and abuse the workers even asking the bosses to fire someone if they think that worker is going to challenge their authority.
We are trying to give communist leadership to the working class. We visit factories to start the process of unionizing at the workplace but we are facing hurdles which are being spread by the factory owners, contractors, security personnel and the misleaders.
Our comrades talk about the importance of changing the system and forging the reform struggle. We explain the necessity of an international communist movement against capitalism. The Progressive Labor Party is spreading its communist ideas among the working class and the workers are responding.
The murder of Nahel M. on June 27th by a traffic cop in Nanterre, France set off a nationwide rebellion against racist police murders. Even after the cop who shot Nahel was arrested, people’s anger and cynicism about the system continued to explode. This multiracial rebellion, led by teenage Black and North African workers, spread to more than 200 cities and towns across France. They responded with violence as the police attacked the young rebels in the streets and arrested more than 3000 people over five nights of demonstrations. The rebellion in France is inspiring as it shows the potential power of the working class. At the same time, like so many uprisings before, without an organized communist party and a political vision of fighting for a workers led society it ends as quickly as it began and leaves many people cynical about fighting back.
Nahel was shot by the police at point blank range. Initially the police lied and said he had tried to run them down, but video exposed their lies and showed them murdering Nahel by shooting him through the driver side window as the car started to drive away.
At first French President Emmanuel Macron tried to ignore the rebellion. He was recorded attending a concert on the second night. But the clashes between young people, angered at the ongoing racism of French capitalism and the police, spread beyond the working-class areas and thousands of people marched in the center of Paris. Macron, who visited police barracks to support his racist killers, looked to the police and the more fascist elements in the country to put down the rebellion.
The rebellion exposed, once again the extreme racism of capitalism. Nanterre is a working-class suburb that has a large number of people of North African descent as well as Black workers. Youth unemployment in Nanterre is at 23 percent (CNN, 7/1) and in France more than 20 percent of teenagers live below the poverty line. Many of them live in suburbs like Nanterre. Instead of the French bosses creating jobs for young people, the area is heavily policed. Across France the police have used identity check powers to harass and terrorize the working class. Young men perceived as Black or North African are 20 times as likely to be stopped by the police than the rest of the population (Guardian, 6/30).
As the demonstrations have died down the French ruling class has organized pro-government rallies across the country. These “restore order” rallies have been led by the most openly racist elements in France, including the fascist Marie Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) which is calling for more prisons and to have people that are arrested for any reason to be evicted from public housing. The working class can’t rely on the bosses to fix capitalism. Instead of making things better the bosses respond with more racism.
These rebellions have shown once again that the working class has the power to shut down and overthrow capitalism. It has also shown that this will only happen by the building of a revolutionary communist movement that can fight to take power through communist revolution.
A PLP member attended a Town Hall podcast which included Michael Brown’s father from Ferguson and Oscar Grant’s father from Oakland and others from Wisconsin, Florida, Georgia, Virginia, and Maryland. These directly impacted families decried Al Sharpton and Ben Crump as ambulance chasers just trying to exploit the families to get more media attention. Nikki pointed out that leaders of groups including the NAACP were similarly a problem.
She said that she wanted to be in touch with local fighters, not just the paid staff of large organizations who limit their engagement due to political connections or their non-profit status.
While community support sometimes flags, Nikki and PLP members said that one solution is to rely on the impacted families and boots-on-the-ground community outreach. On the other hand, Angelo Pinto, an attorney from New York City at the podcast, pushed the failing idea that impacted family members should try to get elected to leadership positions in groups like the NAACP and run for elected political office.
The struggle for justice and communism continues
PLP members struggle with friends in the mass organization over our strategies for struggle and our vision of a better, communist, world. Nikki is also asking questions, joining meetings, and reading CHALLENGE.
As individuals and families directly impacted by all forms of injustice become more involved in our activities, we hope to bring them closer to the PLP so they become leaders in the revolutionary struggle for communism that will eliminate racist government-sponsored terrorism.
