New York City transit strike was quashed by the unions

[IndianaGreen]

New York City transit strike was quashed by the unions

By Bill Van Auken
24 December 2005

A group of top union officials in New York City played the key role in bringing about the abrupt end of the New York City transit strike, brokering a deal that leaves 34,000 subway and bus workers exposed to punishing financial penalties and the continued drive by their employer, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), to extract far-reaching concessions.

This was the first shutdown of the nation’s largest mass transit system in 25 years. It expressed the enormous anger and willingness to sacrifice of this section of the working class, and demonstrated the immense social power it can wield. As a consequence, the strike won broad sympathy within the working population in New York City and beyond.

But among the official union leadership in the city, the walkout was viewed with hostility and fear. The union leaders were terrified that the transit workers’ struggle could get out of control and touch off the social powder keg that exists in the financial center of world capitalism—a city dominated by the social chasm between an elite of Wall Street multimillionaires and millions of struggling and impoverished workers.

The labor bureaucrats’ principal concern was that a successful strike by transit workers could inspire further eruptions of the class struggle. So they set out to sabotage and suppress the strike.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/dec2005/strik-d24.shtml

[DavidDvorkin]

1. That's . . . quaint

WSWS often seems like something from another universe.

[IndianaGreen]

4. Perhaps you prefer to hear it from the mouths of the workers...

As it so happens, WSWS did interview a bus mechanich from Brooklyn named Horace. Here is part of the interview:

“The other city unions—the teachers, the public employees, firefighters—they said they would support us. The heads of these unions spoke at our rallies and pledged to set up a strike fund. In the end, the labor leaders were only involved in a talk shop. The labor officials think, ‘I’ve become successful,’ and they won’t do anything that threatens their positions.

“I’m from Jamaica, and people are thinking of third parties, too. The population is taught to vote against their own interests. The big business parties use ‘social’ issues, like abortion, the legislating of morality and intelligent design, to hide the basic economic interests they both defend.

“I don’t see myself in the middle class. I’m in the working class. The Wall Street guys are getting bonuses that are 10 times what I earn all year. The major corporations aren’t really losing any money, they just want to get fewer and fewer workers to produce more and more. I see what’s happening with Delphi and the auto companies in Detroit. It’s the same thing they’re doing to us.

“Korean automobiles used to be considered inferior. But they’ve reinvested their profits into research and development, and they are as good as anything put out by Detroit. In the US, all the profits they make they plow into compensation packages for the CEOs.

“Where are our pension funds going? They’re dependent on the vicissitudes of the stock market and being under-funded by the companies and the public employers. All of these things are under assault, and the working class is going to have to defend these gains.”

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/dec2005/ints-d24.shtml

[China_cat]

2. We're going to need another Matewan

before workers are going to realize that their only strength is standing together in a strike...no matter what their leaders tell them.

[David Dunham]

3. NY City public workers are not "impoverished"; they make $60k a year

That is the average salary. They also can retire after 20 years service. Many GM and Ford workers now would like that a lot.

[catmother]

5. i agree. there was a thread the other day about how terrible

their jobs are (transit workers) -- working shifts, holidays, etc. there are lots of people who have to work holidays and shifts and do not make anywhere near what these people make. look at the cashiers in the grocery stores, or the person who slices your ham -- these people bust their asses, they're on their feet all day and some make just above the minimum wage. how about the people in department stores -- who have to be at work at 5:00 a.m. the day after thanksgiving so the public can wait on long lines to get merchandise at a sale price. i'm tired of all the complaining. how about hospital workers, nurses, orderies, cafeteria workers?

shut up and count your blessings.

i'm probably going to get flamed and i don't care.

[IndianaGreen]

6. Most people don't have to deal with NYC cost of living either!

I can enjoy a modest but comfortable lifestyle in metro Indianapolis, but if I were to try to do the same in NYC, I would be very hard pressed to stay afloat.

60 grand in NYC is nothing!

[catmother]

7. i know that. i'm from new york. spent the first 48 years of my life

there. between my husband and i we made about $100,000 and that was not a lot. we didn't own a home, so we were taxed up the ass. the little bit we were able to save each year went to the IRS in april. we now live in arizona and my husband was transferred on new york salary so we're doing very well. own a home, cars are paid for, money in the bank, but there are also people in new york who make way less than $60,000 and don't have the benefits that government employees do. those are the ones i'm referring to -- the grocery store clerks, etc.

out of that $100,000 my contribution was around $45,000, but to make that i worked tons of overtime, nights, weekends, holidays -- i even worked on x-mas one year.

i guess i'm tired of the complaining because i always tend to look at the less fortunate and although $60,000 in new york is not a lot, they're still better off than alot of folks.

on edit: that $45,000 that i made was 16 years ago. my friend who lives in new york and does the same kind of work that i did makes that now without overtime. so i would assume if i were still living there, and working overtime i might be making about $60-$65,000.

[Lars39]

13. Money from16 years ago went a lot farther than it does today.

[catmother]

14. i know. my friend who i mentioned lives in a crummy apartment

in jersey city -- rent is like $850. he has a hard time living on $45,000.

things are much different here in phoenix too. the cost of housing has skyrocketed. if we didn't buy our property in 1997 and build when we did we could never afford to live in the house we're living in now.

[kahleefornia]

8. no flaming, I just don't get this argument

These people making $60k/year - they're fighting for their good wages and benefits. That's why they have it better than retail clerks who don't have unions.

You can look at it two ways - either some people have a bad work situation, therefore everyone should have a bad work situation...or...some people have it good, so others should insist on the same.

I understand that it's hard for someone who makes $20k a year to feel sympathy for someone who makes a lot more. But I don't understand why those who have fought for and earned the higher wages to feel guilty or undeserving of them.

If they shut up and count their blessings, they'll be watching them get taken away bit by bit. I say, stand up and shout about your blessings - let everyone know that you can take control and demand respect and good working conditions. You wanna make $60k a year for slicing ham? Join a union, form a union, insist on that money, and make sure everyone else insists with you.

[catmother]

11. well i live in arizona which is a "right to work" state. there are no

unions (well i guess there are some), but if the people who worked in the grocery stores tried to form a union they would be fired. i mean, i think it sucks and i would have a hard time putting up with that shit. i became disabled shortly after moving here, but i can tell you that i would have had a problem working here. for my kind of work, which was in the legal field, they wanted to pay me less than half of what i was making in new york and give me more responsibility.

my husband has worked for 36 years for a large international company and over the years they have taken away benefits that they once fully paid for, e.g. health care, etc., but they've also cut back a tremendous amount of employees -- some are outsourced -- other jobs were just done away with. my husband is 58 and could get a pension now, but he wants to keep working so he has to do more than he did years ago. and no, there is no union. they have tried, but it never worked out -- for reasons that i don't even know about.

and we're both thankful for his job and the money he makes and if he never get's another raise, it's okay because his salary is good.

[mikehiggins]

9. If you ever worked in those tunnels I think you'd have another POV

I'm an electrician who worked one year in the subways and all I could think of that whole time was H.G.Wells' Time Machine. These people may not be Morlocs (they don't EAT the higher classes) but they do a job that very few people would willingly take on if they knew in advance what was involved.

I was sorry to see Local 100 fold.

[catmother]

10. hey. i'm not saying there great jobs. i rode in those tunnels most

of my life and there is no way that i would take a job that involved that. but obviously some people make different choices. i don't know what local 100 is.

to be honest i have never had a union job. i worked for one and 1/2 years as a provisional employee at health & hospitals corp., but did not have to join the union.

i do realize that unions are a good thing -- we'd be back in the sweat shops if it wasn't for them, but i think sometimes they go a little too far.

this whole thing kinda reminds me of my former nail tech. her husband was an airline mechanic (learned it in the air force), but she felt he should be making as much money as her brother who was a pilot. now that's crazy. my cousin is a pilot. he went to school for years and then when he got a job with delta, he had to pay them $10,000 for their special training. so just because her husband the mechanic had to work out in the heat does that automatically make him eligible for a pilot's pay. her rationale was that without the mechanics, the pilot's couldn't fly and yes she was right, but doesn't education mean something?

[bemildred]

12. So, they need to stop following their "leaders". nt

[Clara T]

15. It Had To Be

lest bad examples be set. This was a perfect example of corporatism and an illustration of how wildly to the right this country actually is- where you have so called "liberals" or moderates arguing FOR the breaking of the strike based on articles they read in the "liberal" papers of record or their own sentiments of not wanting to be inconvenienced.

And about the "liberal" media, how come so much time dedicated to Business news and no Labor section?