Socialist Action /January 2000
NY Transit Workers are Defiant as Voting
on New Contract Nears
BY LEO SCHWARTZ
NEW YORK-The most popular chant by transit workers at two large contract
rallies was "strike!" but the union bureaucrats were determined
to sabotage any real confrontation with the Metropolitan Transit Authority
(MTA) and the city's ruling class.
A tentative contract agreement was reached two hours after the expiration
date of midnight, Dec. 14. The contract now faces a ratification vote sometime
in January by the 31,000 members of the Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local
100.
The defiant mood of the rank and file was most evident in the prominent
role of the New Directions Caucus (ND), whose contract theme this year was
"End a Generation of Givebacks." ND received over 48 percent of
the vote in the previous union election and controls just under half of
the union Executive Board.
As a result of the new militancy, two "gag order" injunctions,
amounting to unprecedented fines and prison sentences, were filed on Dec.
14 by the city and the MTA, a state agency, on the initiative of Mayor Rudolf
Giuliani.
The proposed three-year contract, negotiated under the gun, contains
a modest 12.5 percent wage package and a highly uncertain 2.3 percent reduction
in membership pension contributions. Included are minimal changes in transit's
vicious discipline policy. These "gains," however, are funded
by massive union givebacks.
Gag orders imperil all labor!
Shaping the contract package were the draconian injunctions. They called
for fining Local 100 $1 million for the first day of a strike, which would
double each succeeding day. Individual workers also would be fined $25,000
a day for striking and that amount would be doubled each additional day.
The injunctions also prohibited making union motions on striking or slow-downs.
The gag orders even prohibited talking about strikes or slow-downs. According
to city attorneys, advocating a "no" vote on the contract also
may have been prohibited. Arrests of Local 100 executive officers were possible,
said Giuliani.
Giuliani specifically singled out the role of New Directions as "a
bunch of Marxists" with "too much power."
The gag orders were in addition to New York State's existing Taylor Law,
a particularly repressive piece of anti-union legislation. It was passed
by both Republicans and Democrats in the wake of the successful 1966 transit
strike. The law prohibits strikes, slow-downs, and even "work to rule"
job actions.
ND challenged the injunctions in court on Dec. 16 in conjunction with
the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Local 100 attorney Malcolm Goldstein, who was present at the hearing, actually
consented to the injunctions!
Mayor Giuliani later withdrew the city's injunction, in order to not
risk certain defeat in a higher court. The city's injunction will likely
be filed again against Local 100 during the membership ratification process
and will certainly lie in waiting for upcoming municipal union contracts.
The MTA injunction still stands, and ND is continuing its legal actions.
Bowing down to Wall Street
Transit workers were expecting to make up ground lost in decades of sellout
contracts. The previous contract, ratified in 1996, included a mere 3.75
percent raise over the life of the contract; a one-year wage freeze; cuts
in health benefits, a union-busting workfare scheme, and other givebacks
totaling about $100 million.
The 1996 contract was narrowly ratified following a fear campaign by
management concerning budget deficits and lay-offs. The MTA's subway and
bus subdivision, the New York City Transit (NYCT), claimed it was $350 million
in debt and threatened to lay off 2000 workers if major concessions were
not agreed to.
Local 100 President Willie James proposed workfare as a way to save transit
millions. But one week after the contract was narrowly ratified the NYCT
revealed a $256 million surplus for 1996!
In 1999, expectations were high, given the enormous MTA surplus estimated
at up to $400 million. And so, when transit once again cried poverty, few
believed it. MTA chief Virgil Conway quickly revealed his hypocrisy when
he told the press that the tentative contract had a "quite modest effect
on the MTA budget."
Most transit workers view the proposed contract as nothing less than
a sellout. Statistics released by TWU consultants show that the perceptions
of Local 100 members that they have lost ground in relation to transit workers
in most other major U.S. cities are warranted. Wage gains for increased
productivity and management contribution to members' pension plans are virtually
the lowest of any major transit system.
In addition to anger over the paltry wage and benefits package, Local
100 members reacted angrily to revelations of massive givebacks negotiated
behind the backs of the membership and most of the elected officers.
In the name of "productivity savings," the contract includes
a management "broadbanding" scheme, which will combine many job
titles and result in a loss of seniority rights. Broadbanding is a form
of union-busting that will allow management free reign to play favorites
in assigning work for 3000 workers.
In addition, the new proposal includes the continued use of a union-busting
workfare workers program, strongly opposed by the membership. Workfare is
a racist, anti-labor program signed into law by President Clinton. It forces
the poor to work without rights for their meager assistance checks and substitutes
virtual slave labor for union workers.
Union bureaucrats undermine fight
With the Christmas shopping season combined with approaching millennial
celebrations, members saw the timing of the Dec. 15 expiration date as a
once in a lifetime opportunity to exert maximum leverage on the MTA.
During negotiations, President Willie James vowed, under intense pressure
from ND, that he would "not rule out any option" concerning a
strike. However, activists interpreted a statement made by James on television
(which he now denies having said!) that "the members of this union
will keep the subways and buses running" as being a reassuring signal
to the city's ruling class.
Even though the MTA is primarily state funded, the TWU was seen as the
contract pace setter in upcoming contract battles next year between city
municipal unions and Mayor Giuliani. Unfortunately, James received an ovation
at a meeting of the New York City Central Labor Council for his role in
negotiating the TWU contract. Not surprisingly, there was virtually no mention
of the gag order injunctions.
It will not be forgotten by transit workers, who are mostly African American
and Hispanic, that the James leadership and most of the Labor Council endorsed
the racist Mayor Rudolf Giuliani in the last mayoral election. By applauding
James' role, these labor misleaders betrayed not only transit workers but
the entire labor movement-especially their own members.
The role of New Directions
Defeating New Directions in next year's union election was James's top
priority in contract negotiations. The pro-James officialdom is in the double
bind of being forced to deliver a minimal package before facing off with
ND in the election while maintaining Local 100 as a union loyal to the MTA
and the city's ruling bankers and real estate sharks.
ND is widely viewed by the membership as providing the impetus for whatever
gains were made in contract negotiations, and the caucus expects its "vote
no" campaign to succeed. ND organized numerous press conferences and
media interviews and its perspective became a constant feature of the extensive
media coverage of the contract struggle.
An ND motion was passed by the Executive Board to hold the first local-wide
union meeting since at least 1972. Although held under a gag order, the
mood of the several thousand who attended was defiant.
In addition, an ND initiative called for a march from transit headquarters
to City Hall over the Brooklyn Bridge the day after the Dec. 15 expiration
date of the old contract. Other unions were invited to attend the rally
in order to begin a united contract fight. An ND motion for Local 100 to
sponsor the rally was also approved.
However, the rally turned into a "vote no" event, with only
ND and its supporters attending. Some 500 turned out for what turned out
to be a spirited march. Yet the relatively small crowd revealed enduring
weaknesses of ND in building broad grassroots organization among transit
workers.
ND was fortunate in securing the solidarity of the New York Taxi Workers
Alliance (NYTWA), which had organized several successful taxi strikes. When
taxi organizers appeared at an ND-sponsored news conference pledging not
to pick up "multi-fares," as the mayor had urged them to do during
a strike, Giuliani threatened the NYTWA with an injunction.
The big business media quickly fell into line with the Giuliani administration
and the MTA in demonizing ND as the "out of control" militant
wing of Local 100.
Mobilizing the "vote no" sentiment and resisting the gag order
injunctions are the tasks ahead for ND and all Local 100 members. The gag
orders and the anti-labor Taylor Law are deadly threats to the labor movement
and to free speech rights under the Constitution.
New York transit workers need the support of the entire labor movement
and all working people. If you'd like to help, call ND at (718) 796-1986.
Socialist Action /January 2000 |