Transport Workers Solidarity Committee

Budget Woes Prompt Privatization Fights in Public Transit
http://labornotes.org/2010/02/budget-woes-prompt-privatization-fights-public-transit

Evan Rohar| March 1, 2010

In late January members of AFSCME Local 3299 surrounded a newly privatized non-union bus at a Berkeley lab. The University of California recently contracted out one bus line—but the union has stopped the administration's drive to privatize all service at Berkeley. Photo: Liz Perlman

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As budget-butchering legislators and executives slash away at public services and public workers, they’re reaching for a familiar tactic: privatization.

Privatization Watch, an information clearinghouse, counts 411 battles over privatization between 2008 and 2009, from a riot at a Kentucky prison provoked by a contractor’s lousy food to a Republican governor in Indiana who killed a billion-dollar contract to outsource welfare-benefits after big delays and denials to qualified applicants.

Only 30 proposed privatizations were stopped. But one arena where unions are generating outsized heat lately is transit.

TWA Former Flight Attendants Charge Betrayal By APFA And Threaten To Cross Lines Of American Airlines Flight Attendants
February 10, 2010

Ex-TWA flight attendants send another message to APFA
6:11 PM Wed, Feb 10, 2010 | Permalink
Terry Maxon/Reporter
At the risk of starting a new knife fight, I'm passing on the latest messages coming out of the Coalition for Union Principles, a group of ex-Trans World Airlines flight attendants that joined American Airlines and then got furloughed.

Last week, the group said they would be willing to work American flights if the Association of Professional Flight Attendants went out on strike. That prompted more comments than any other item Airline Biz has published, by a factor of at least three.

I won't rehash the issues involved here. Here are the messages:

Item #1:

TO: APFA
FROM: TWA Flight Attendants

RE: New Poll Tax

DATE: February 10, 2010

The former TWA Flight Attendants who have been the victims of your anti-union animosity since 2001 are well aware of your most recent action to disenfranchise us. The most recent slap that requires us to pay a poll tax in the full amount of monthly union dues even though all but about 20 of us are unemployed is well understood. We are also aware that the APFA membership voted down a dues increase of $1.63 per month for those who are active and working while requiring those of us who are unemployed and not working to shoulder the entire amount of monthly dues as a condition of voting.

Sacramento RT may cut up to 30% of its ATU jobs in spring
http://www.sacbee.com/ourregion/story/2500979.html?storylink=omni_popular

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Paul Kitagaki Jr. / pkitagaki@sacbee.com
Continuing budget problems have led Sacramento Regional Transit administrators to announce that layoffs and reduction in bus service, among other cutbacks, are probable in coming months.

Sacramento RT may cut up to 30% of its jobs in spring
STAFF, SERVICES AT RISK IF INCOME DOESN'T REBOUND

By Tony Bizjak
tbizjak@sacbee.com

Mired in a protracted financial slump, Sacramento Regional Transit officials have answered with fare hikes, service cuts, pay freezes and furloughs.

But revenue keeps spiraling down, and now agency officials say they must use a word they were trying to avoid – layoffs.

RT General Manager Mike Wiley said Friday he expects that in two weeks, he'll begin issuing an undetermined number of notices.

Unless finances rebound this spring, as many as 300 employees – 30 percent of the work force – could lose their jobs, Wiley said.

The list would include bus drivers, maintenance workers, mechanics and managers. "All levels," Wiley said.

How the Teamsters Beat Goldman Sachs

http://www.counterpunch.org/andrew01082010.html

Weekend Edition
January 8 - 10, 2010

Saving 30,000 Jobs

How the Teamsters Beat Goldman Sachs

By ANDREW COCKBURN

Among the causes of the ongoing financial meltdown, many experts cite the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, smuggled through Congress late on a December evening in 2000. The law exempted Credit Default Swaps (CDS) which are essentially bets on the value of securities from all regulation, including state gambling laws. This allowed Wall Street to conclude that any risk could be hedged with a bet. The result, of course, was disaster, with economic consequences that we will be feeling for a very long time.

“When I wrote part of that legislation with these hands on my little keyboard,” a former financial industry lobbyist who helped craft the law recently told me, “I didn’t realize that this was going to make people lose their jobs, pension funds their reserves, universities their endowments. But that’s what happened”

There are now shelves full of books describing the disaster caused by the enabling of Wall Street as a wide open casino. Butt amidst the wreckage and plaintive cries for “reform,” Wall Street is full tilt in the business of destroying companies and throwing thousands of men and women out of work in order to turn a quick profit on a CDS trade.

Bay Area Trade Unionists Protest Afghanistan War On 8th Anniversary
http://blip.tv/file/2735977

Bay Area Trade Unionists Protest Afghanistan War On 8th Anniversary
On October 17, 2009 on the 8th anniversary of the attack on Afghanistan Bay area trade unionists spoke out against the continuing US war in Afghanistan and wars in Iraq and around the world. Trade unionists included Betty Olson-Jones, president of Oakland Education Association and Jack Heyman, Executive Board ILWU Local 10.
Produced By
Labor Video Project
P.O. Box 720027
San Francisco, CA 94172
(415)282-1908
www.laborvideo.org laborvideo.blip.tv

Let's Fire the Union President! - Austin ATU 1091 President Charges "Union Busting"

http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid:864407

HOME: SEPTEMBER 18, 2009: NEWS

Let's Fire the Union President!

BY MICHAEL KING

Jay Wyatt
Photo by John Anderson
As if Capital Metro didn't have enough public relations problems, on Friday, Sept. 11, agency management fired Jay Wyatt, the president of the drivers and mechanics' union (Amalga mat ed Transit Union Local 1091), on unspecified charges of "sexual harassment."

More precisely, Wyatt was dismissed (effective Sept. 14) by Cap Metro subcontractor StarTran after failing to meet a management-imposed deadline that he sign off on the company's Equal Employment Opportunity State ment and Anti-Harassment Policy Statement and attend a training session on "proper conduct in the workplace," according to StarTran General Manager Terry Garcia Crews. In her letter to Wyatt informing him of the termination, Crews wrote, "This action will end all your benefits and healthcare coverage." Although Wyatt's current duties are as a full-time union officer (elected for his first of eight terms in 1986), he has been officially employed by Cap Metro as a bus driver since Jan. 13, 1978.

Harbor ID card program hobbled by errors:Thousands Of Workers Have Lost Their Job In The Screening Process
http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_13278492

Report: Harbor ID card program hobbled by errors

By Kristopher Hanson Staff Writer
Posted: 09/05/2009 06:04:58 PM PDT

LONG BEACH - What began as a post-Sept. 11, effort to screen port workers through a national ID system has turned into a bureaucratic nightmare for thousands of longshore workers, truckers, mariners and others who need the badges to work at their waterfront jobs, a new report shows.

The biometric photo ID card, known as the Transportation Worker Identification Card, or TWIC, has been required for anyone needing access to "secure areas" of the nation's ports since April.

In this case, "secure areas" includes nearly all space not open to the public, including container terminals, railyards and commercial ships.

Passed by Congress in the days after 9-11, the program requires workers to undergo an extensive federal background check, pay a $134 fee and submit fingerprints to the Transportation Security Administration.

Disqualifying offenses include serious felonies such as murder, espionage, drug smuggling and terrorism- related crimes.

Security Screening Process Flawed, Leaves Dockworkers Jobless

http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/07/09/report-security-screening-process-flawed-leaves-dock-workers-jobless/

Report: Security Screening Process Flawed, Leaves Dockworkers Jobless

by Mike Hall, Jul 9, 2009

Thousands of longshore workers, truck drivers and other workers at ports across the nation are out of work, not because of a staggering economy, but because they are caught up in a backlogged, inefficient and often inaccurate screening process for background security checks.

According to a new report from the National Employment Law Project (NELP), the federal Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA’s) post-Sept. 11 port worker background checks have put thousands of otherwise qualified and experienced port workers on the streets instead of the docks, with no rights to back pay once they gain their security clearance.

Most of the workers caught in this bureaucratic limbo are members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), Longshoremen (ILA) and Teamsters (IBT).

The report is the first evaluation of the worker protections in TSA’s Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC). It finds that thousands of workers—disproportionately African American and Latino men—have had to wait an average of seven months while their applications are reviewed, leaving them unable to work and support their families in the midst of a devastating recession.

2009 Joint International Anti-War Statement:To the Working People of the World

2009 Joint International Anti-War Statement

To the Working People of the World

Worldwide big economic crisis has begun, and capitalism is on the verge of catastrophe. Protectionism is gaining power rapidly, and the US and Japanese governments are setting the stage for an escalation of war and privatization and also for increasing union busting and repression against the working class. The Korean Government is intensifying suppression and destroying unity of KCTU, the forefront fighters of　working class.

In Japan, the government has disregarded Constitution Article 9 and sent military forces to Somalia and is also making major military escalation against North Korea. The Japanese military budget is being expanded at the same time that major cuts are being made in healthcare and pension benefits for tens of millions of workers and retired workers. The militaristic threats and chauvinism against the people of North Korea and the hysteria created by the Japanese media and government officials is directly aimed not only against the North Korean people but the people in Japan who oppose war.

http://www.rmtlondoncalling.org.uk/node/526

Protest: Stop Israel Railways Sacking Arab Workers
Israel / Palestine
Start: 11/05/2009 13:00
Israel Railways is introducing a new rule that could lead to around 150 Arab rail workers losing their jobs - more details here.
RMT General Secretary Bob Crow has written to the Israeli embassy outlining the union's opposition to this move. On Monday 11 May, Bob will be asking the Israeli embassy to receive an RMT delegation to hear our objections to this. Come to the Israeli embassy - map here - to show your support to our delegation and your opposition to Israel Railways' action.

A leaflet advertising the protest is attached.

Stop Israel Railways
Sacking Arab Workers
action for international solidarity
Israel Railways is introducing a new rule that level crossing guards must
hold firearms licences. This effectively restricts these jobs to army veterans.
Since Israeli Arabs are exempted from military service, they will be
excluded from these jobs.
Israel Railways issued 40 Israeli Arab citizens with redundancy notices on
Sunday March 29, effective from the beginning of April.
The Tel Aviv labour court has twice suspended the implementation of the