AC Transit board about to impose concessionary contract on workers as they cut services

This person speaking on the right side is cut off here and until I can correct that you can view the video here if you would prefer.



I attended the Transit board meeting tonight in Oakland.  The board is attempting to force a concessionary contract on the transit workers' local.  The transit system here, like throughout the public sector, is being savaged in order to pay for the crisis.   Bus drivers have very difficult jobs, there are numerous ailments they are prone to especially back problems, but also dealing with the public.  Often (as I wrote in an earlier post) the anger  the public feels at the attacks waged on us can come out against public sector workers like transit drivers. There are also mechanics and other workers involved.

The Alameda Central Labor Council had a couple of representatives there and there was also an international staffer from the ATU.  But these attacks will not go away just by a few people turning up at a board meeting.  The Central Labor Council leadership and the leadership of all the potentially powerful Unions in the area could and should mobilize the 100,000 or so affiliated workers and shut Oakland down.  This is what we have to do if we are to drive back this aggressive offensive of the employers. We have to do what they did oin the 30's and during the civil rights movement.  We have to challenge and violate their anti-union anti-worker laws in a mass way.  No single Union can stop this offensive and unfortunately, this is what the Union heads do, leave small locals isolated, fighting the employers alone; no one Union local can beat them alone, we must also join with the communities in which we live and work. There's more of us than them.

The Union leadership at the highest levels will not do this without a movement from below to force them,a movement  that will also replace the present concession minded ones who believe in the Team Concept and generally have the same view of the world as the boss does. We have no choice but to build caucuses within the Unions to challenge the present leadership and change to tactics that are actually going to work.  We have the numbers. Campaigning openly against the concessionary policies of the leadership is difficult, more difficult than fighting the boss, but we have no alternative if we want to stop the carnage.

We can win if we also link up with the communities, youth and others under attack.  By fighting for more public transit, a $15 an hour minimum wage, or a $5 per hour increase whichever is greater,  jobs, free education, health care etc. we can build a strong united movement, and as one worker told me at the board, we need a political party of our own. Foreclosures, renters rights, taking up all these issues is what will make us strong; students have begun to resist the savage fee hikes and cuts in education.  We know the money is there, we have to fight for it though.  They agreed to another $59 billion or so for Afghanistan today, it's all about where the money goes.

I haven't much time to write more I will let the two drivers in the video tell a little about what is happening.