Transport Workers Solidarity Committee

SF TWU250A Fare spat highlights growing tensions

http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/Fare-spat-highlights-growing-tensions-83414237.html

Fare spat highlights growing tensions
By: WILL REISMAN and WILL REISMAN
San Francisco Examiner
February 3, 2010

(Examiner file photo)
SAN FRANCISCO — A Muni operator was spit on and physically threatened in a fare dispute last week in the Sunset district, the type of altercation that has increased in the past year and could become more prevalent with the transit agency proposing a series of service reductions.
In 2009, there were 81 assaults recorded against Muni operators, a 33 percent increase from 2008’s 61 incidents, according to Municipal Transportation Agency statistics. With two separate fare increases going into effect in the past seven months, and Muni proposing a
10 percent service reduction, many operators are fearful that aggressive assaults will spike even more, said Irwin Lum, president of Transport Workers Union Local 250-A.
“There is no question that the situation will get worse,” he said. “People are already upset about the fare increases, and now they’re going to be waiting longer to cram into crowded buses. It just makes for a real tense situation.”

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=20190

Posted: 2.05pm Friday 5 February 2010

Strike disrupts London Underground

The picket line at Hainault on Friday morning was joined by RMT leader Bob Crow (right) (Pic: Socialist Worker)

by Siân Ruddick

A strike by 750 signals workers has caused major disruption on London Underground today. The RMT transport union members are angry about management's plans to enforce shift changes, break agreements and outsource work.

Around 25 signal workers picketed the Hainault depot in Essex this morning on the first day of a programme of strikes.

The workers are employed by the former Metronet company, a private consortium that went bust and had to be taken back in-house.

Steve Hedley, the RMT regional organiser told Socialist Worker, “It’s no secret there are going to be £60 million cuts from Metronet. We’ve drawn a line in the sand here, fighting these attacks.”

Strikes will continue every Sunday starting from 14 February until the signallers win their demands.

Other sections were encouraged to stay out in solidarity with the signal workers. Drivers in particular were concerned about safety.

One said, “I’m going to speak to my manager and tell him I’m not driving the train. If I get stuck in a tunnel with a train full of people, there is no one there to sort it.”

Muni union TWU 250A Officials, S.F. agree on cost-cutting measures
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2010/02/06/MN1Q1BTKF9.DTL

Muni union, S.F. agree on cost-cutting measures
John Coté,Michael Cabanatuan, Chronicle Staff Writers
Saturday, February 6, 2010

(02-05) 22:17 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- Union leaders for Muni drivers reached a tentative deal late Friday with Mayor Gavin Newsom's administration that could prevent price increases in monthly passes for seniors, youth and the disabled and reduce systemwide service cuts, The Chronicle has learned.

Both sides declined to discuss specifics, but during four days of intense negotiations, the talks focused on cost savings from having drivers start contributing to their retirement accounts and unspecified work rule changes.

The estimated savings will be $14.9 million over two years. The savings would help reduce service cuts from 10 percent to about 6.5 percent, reduce the number of drivers that will be laid off and possibly eliminate the need to extend metered parking to Sundays. However, Sunday parking could be brought back as a way to generate new revenue for the next budget cycle, which begins July 1.

NYC Students, transit workers rally outside MTA-TWU 100 Working With Students To Fight Attack On Public Transit
http://www.workers.org/2010/us/mta_0211/

NEW YORK
Students, transit workers rally outside MTA

By Tony Murphy
New York
Published Feb 4, 2010 10:04 PM
A dynamic student movement has risen up against the bank-controlled Metropolitan Transit Authority’s provocative proposal to eliminate free student MetroCards. For the second time since this serious cut was announced, hundreds of high school students protested Feb. 1 outside the MTA’s headquarters, chanting “MTA, we won’t pay!”

A blatant attack has aroused a fightback in
NYC’s middle and high schools.
WW photo: Tony Murphy
The outrageous proposal has also prompted greater collaboration between students and Transit Workers Union Local 100, whose officers addressed the crowd and the media at the action. Along with student activists, speakers represented Sistas and Brothas United, Desis Rising Up and Moving, the Northwest Bronx Coalition, Make the Road New York, and Youth on the Move, as well as a handful of elected representatives.

The campaign to save student MetroCards is also a movement to defend public education — the MTA’s proposal is the New York equivalent of cancelling school buses. This campaign is growing alongside the one against Mayor Bloomberg’s attempt to close 19 schools and the March 4 Day to Defend Education, whose multiple actions at college campuses around the city will culminate in a march that ends at MTA headquarters.

Philadelphia Messengers Take On City's Hysterical Crack-down
by Mykke Holcomb

Within the last few months, two pedestrians in Philadelphia were hit and killed by cyclists who were never identified. In a city wrought with social tension and a less-than-friendly attitude toward cyclists, local politicians and the press easily managed to whip up public hysteria and initiate a repressive anti-bike campaign. New traffic enforcement legislation, proposed by City Councilmen DiCicco and Kelley, would disproportionately affect working messengers, including requiring cyclists over age 12 to register and adorn a license plate on their bikes under penalty of fines and confiscation, and stiff fines of $1000 for riding a brakeless track bike. And amidst the blind rage being directed toward cyclists, veteran messenger Rachel Fletcher was hospitalized after a severe hit-and-run when riding home one night. After a significant period of inactivity, the Philadelphia Bike Messenger Association reared its head again to take a stand.

The PBMA and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) have a history of collaboration in organizing around workplace issues. In 2007, the two worked together to defeat unreasonable uniform policies at the courier service Intercept. Wobblies have maintained an active presence in Philly's messenger industry since. This is an interview I conducted with Philadelphia messenger, PBMA organizer, and former co-worker and co-organizer of mine, Jorge Brito.

General Strike In Turkey Against Privatizations And Attack On Labor-Transportation Workers To Act

http://www.sendika.org/english/yazi.php?yazi_no=29082

Turkey – GENERAL STRIKE!
04 February 2010 -

To support the TEKEL tobacco and food workers struggle against privatizations, contracting and roll backs, 6 labor confederations started a joint general strike in Turkey. The confederations announced they are exercising their “right not to work” as the basis of their action.

Entire country is behind the struggling workers because everyone is under attack from neo liberal, free market policies of the Islamic, pro-US government implementing the IMF and World Bank mandates. Other sectors in Turkey such as students, youth and professional associations are also supporting the strike and are on the streets.

Transportation comes to a halt in Izmir

The third largest city in Turkey came to a halt today as all public workers participated in the action against imperialist mandates to economy in Turkey. The buses and other public transportation systems have completely stopped in Izmir.

Police attacks workers

Workers marching in Unkapi district in Istanbul were attacked by the police, currently, the police and the workers are on a stand-off.

Charleston 5 10th Anniversary Victory Celebration & Jobs with Rights Now Campaign

---
A Call to Remember the Charleston Five--10 Years Later

Commemorating the Struggle, Celebrating the Victory & Charting the Future

February 25 & 26, 2010

Charleston, South Carolina
On the night of Jan. 19, 2000, South Carolina law enforcement agencies teamed up to send a military style police force of 600 to attack a picket line of longshoremen at the port of Charleston who were defending their union jobs against Nordana, a Danish shipping line. The police brutality against International Longshoremen Association Local 1422, a 98 percent African American local, became a bloody war scene, with many workers injured and hospitalized, including Local 1422 President Ken Riley.
Living up to the ugly legacy of the Old South, the right-wing Republican State Attorney General, Charles Condon, the former chairman of the George W. Bush for President campaign in South Carolina, turned reality on its head and charged five longshoremen, four black and one white, with conspiracy to riot felonies. A global and national solidarity movement to Free the Charleston 5 arose in response and became one of the most significant victories of our time.

SF Deal in the works for TWU 250A Muni drivers? Union Officials Working "Around the clock" To Discuss Possible Union Givebacks and Work Rule Changes

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/cityinsider/detail?entry_id=56451

Deal in the works for Muni drivers?

After meeting behind closed doors with leaders of the Muni operators' union Monday, Mayor Gavin Newsom made clear that a proposed charter amendment by Supervisor Sean Elsbernd is making it tough for the transportation agency to secure labor concessions.
The proposed ballot measure would make the operators' pay subject to collective bargaining. Currently, they are guaranteed through the city charter, that their base salary makes them at least the second-highest paid transit operators in the country.
Elsbernd is one of Newsom's ally's but the mayor said that the supervisor's proposal may make sense from a policy perspective, but ''it doesn't solve this year's problem or next year's problem.'' The Municipal Transportation Agency must close a $16.9 million deficit by the close of the current fiscal year that ends June 30 and is looking at deep service cuts, fare hikes and parking fine and fee increases.
The agency projects a minimum $52.7 million shortfall for the next fiscal year. Muni brass hopes to extract at least $700,000 in labor concessions to whittle down this year's deficit and at least $10 million to tackle next year's. ''I'm concerned that we are creating a wedge that will make it more difficult to actually get to where we need to go in terms of any contribution from (the Transport Workers Union Local 250-A),'' Newsom told The Chronicle editorial board.

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=20113

Posted: 7.23pm Tuesday 26 January 2010

Exposed: secrets of the British Airways scab 'union'
by Sadie Robinson

A scab “union” has been set up at British Airways to undermine the cabin crew’s strike ballot.

The “Professional Cabin Crew Council” (PCCC) has emailed cabin crew telling them to vote no.

The workers’ Unite union believes that BA is directly funding it.

The PCCC smells of the bosses. Documents obtained by Socialist Worker show that it is out to destroy the union.

“Unite have acted illegally, they have misrepresented us, and they have unashamedly turned the public against us,” one PCCC document reads.

“We are therefore trying to spread the word through the cabin crew community to Vote No in the re-ballot and resign from Unite.”

The scab “union” is a shadowy organisation. It refuses to give any details about who has set it up—using alleged fear of Unite as an excuse.

“Unfortunately, we cannot tell you who we are because if we do, they will be on to us, and they will stop it. By any means,” it claims.

Its description of working life at BA will be alien to workers. In its latest flyer, “Myths about voting yes”, it argues, “We have suffered no real hardship.”