Transport Workers Solidarity Committee

Uncommon Success for Union Adversary And Union Buster in San Francisco-Pits TWU 250 A Drivers Against Public
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703700904575391183918775358.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsTop
SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREAJULY 29, 2010
Uncommon Success for Union Adversary
In City Friendly to Organized Labor, Sean Elsbernd Garnered Record Signatures for Measure to Undo Muni Contract Rules
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By GEOFFREY A. FOWLER

Theo Rigby for The Wall Street Journal
San Francisco Board of Supervisors member Sean Elsbernd is campaigning to overhaul Muni union contracts.

Sean Elsbernd is scoring victories by battling with organized labor, a strategy that not long ago might have derailed a politician's career in San Francisco.

Earlier this month Mr. Elsbernd, the city supervisor for District 7, won certification for a voter initiative on November's ballot that would overhaul contracts with the union that operates San Francisco's financially troubled Muni public-transportation system.

Critics, he says, "said Sean Elsbernd's political career is over" for taking on the issue in this famously pro-union town.

First Transit Sued for Discrimination against African-Americans, Latinos

http://www.atu.org/content/atu_news/first_transit_sued_for_discrimination_against_african-american_latino_/
First Transit Sued for Discrimination against African-Americans, Latinos

ATU — OAKLAND, CA (7/20)

Class action lawsuit backed by nation's largest transit union asserts that major provider of paratransit and bus service violates federal race discrimination laws in its operations across the United States.

Workers with criminal records barred from employment no matter how old the conviction.

OAKLAND, CA: A class action lawsuit was filed today against First Transit, Inc., one of the nation’s largest bus companies, for illegal discrimination against African-American and Latino employees and job applicants.

The lead plaintiff, Adrienne Hudson, is an African-American woman who was fired in 2009 by First Transit in Oakland, CA, after just two days on the job. The legal action is supported by the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), the nation’s largest union of mass transit workers, and the National Employment Law Project (NELP), a non-profit organization advocating for employee rights.

UK RMT’s Bob Crow calls for “generalised strikes and community direct action” to resist ConDem Government assault on jobs, living standards and public services
http://www.rmt.org.uk/Templates/Internal.asp?NodeID=136993
RMT’s Bob Crow calls for “generalised strikes and community direct action” to resist ConDem Government assault on jobs, living standards and public services

Publication Date: June 30 2010

SPEAKING TO delegates at transport union RMT’s annual conference in Aberdeen today, General Secretary Bob Crow will issue a “call to arms” to the entire Labour and Trade Union Movement and communities under attack for a “sustained campaign of generalised strikes across both the public and private sectors and community direct action to defend public services in the teeth of the fiscal fascism being unleashed by this ConDem government.”

Bob Crow, RMT General Secretary, will say:

“This ConDem administration has thrown down the biggest challenge to the Trade Union Movement since Margaret Thatcher took on the National Union of Mineworkers. I have no hesitation in saying that it will take general and co-ordinated strike action across the public and private sectors to stop their savage assault on jobs, living standards and public services.

Madrid subway shut down by mass strike
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jun2010/spai-j30.shtml
Madrid subway shut down by mass strike
By Alex Lantier
30 June 2010
Striking train drivers shut down the Madrid subway yesterday, ignoring minimum service rules imposed by the Madrid regional government. Traffic jams rapidly spread throughout the city. The subway network carries 2 million passengers daily; bus and taxi services were overwhelmed as commuters tried to get to work.
After the Madrid regional government led by Esperanza Aguirre of the right-wing Partido Popular (PP, People’s Party) demanded a 5 percent wage cut for Metro workers, workers gathered in an assembly on June 22 and voted for a three-day strike proposed by the unions, starting on June 28. Aguirre’s cut violates a collective contract negotiated last year. Workers demonstrated before the Madrid regional Assembly on June 24, chanting, “Out! Out!” and clashing with National Police.
After the first day of strikes—when minimum service rules forced workers to maintain 50 percent of normal service levels—a workers’ assembly including 4,000 of the 7,500-strong workforce voted for a total strike for yesterday. Workers voted yesterday to extend the total strike to today and to meet this morning to decide on whether to extend the strike.

AFL-CIO Pres Trumka Working To "Channel" Workers Anger: ATU Retiree Golash Says It's The Pro-Profit Orientation Trumka Supports
http://peoplesworld.org/union-s-2010-mission-channel-worker-anger-in-positive-direction/
Union’s 2010 mission: channel worker anger in positive direction
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by: MARK GRUENBERG
june 6 2010
tags: workers, unions, elections, economy

WASHINGTON (PAI) - Calling workers "frustrated, anxious and angry" about "an economy that doesn't work for them," AFL-CIO President Richard L. Trumka says unions' mission this election year is to "channel" the anger in a positive direction.

And, he warned, it may not always be in the direction of supporting Democratic Party congressional candidates this fall. We'll partner with the Democratic Party when they work for working people - and won't when they won't," he warned.

Speaking to a packed house of 200 people at federation headquarters, Trumka joined other panelists - Rep. Donna Edwards, D-Md., Working America director Karen Nussbaum, and journalists Chris Hayes of The Nation and Peter Wilson of The Wall Street Journal - in discussing popular anger, its causes and its electoral consequences.

Boston protesters led by USWA 8751 bus drivers disrupt Palin’s Tea-Party rant
http://www.workers.org/2010/us/boston_0422/
Boston protesters disrupt Palin’s Tea-Party rant

Banner says: “Union jobs & healthcare for all! Stop the pro-war, racist, sexist, anti-LGBT Palin/Tea Party attack!”

Published Apr 14, 2010 9:43 PM

By Steve Gillis
Vice President, Steelworkers Local 8751
Boston

Boston, Arpil 14.
WW photo: Maureen Skehan
The day started with immediate tension as Bail Out the People Movement activists and the mostly Haitian-origin staff of Steelworkers Local 8751 unfurled their banner in the middle of the Tea Party’s rally here today.

The banner read: “Union jobs & healthcare for all! Stop the pro-war, racist, sexist, anti-LGBT Palin/Tea Party attack!” At Boston’s Park Street subway station on Boston Common in the heart of downtown, the anti-racists were immediately surrounded by screaming white men, some wearing hardhats and carrying U.S. flags. Police dressed for battle looked on, smiling at the Tea Party gang.

Steelworkers Local 8751 school bus drivers.
Overcoming their hesitation, the anti-racists got out the bullhorns and took the racist forces on politically. They said that unions are in favor of free healthcare for all people and want a government-sponsored jobs program for all of our millions of unemployed sisters and brothers.

SF MUNI TWU 250-A Driver Speaks Out: No Reaseon To Giveback-Our labor CREATES value! Operators are an asset not a liability

NO REASON TO GIVEBACK.

Our labor CREATES value! Operators are an asset not a liability.

SURPLUS VALUE.

The pay and benefits we receive represent only a portion of the value created by our labor. The portion of our labor value kept by the employer can be understood as SURPLUS VALUE.
The employer accumulates and keeps the total of all the employees surplus value.

In the private sector this accumulation of surplus value becomes "capital",
profit and bonuses for the exclusive use of the employer nand his class.

In the public sector this accumulation has to be understood in the context
of revenue / taxes. Public sector workers create value and services ,
which the public pays for with various fees, fares and taxes.

A CONTRADICTION.

There is an inherent contradiction in the public sector for the capitalists/ employers.

Unlike private profit, in the public sector the accumulation of our surplus value belongs to us -to the public. Since this is supposed to be a democracy, we can contend with the capitalists over how to use it.

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.