Transport Workers Solidarity Committee

Transit riders to assemble to demand a user-based transit system in Austin

 AUSTIN, Texas (August 23, 2010
Buss Riders Union/El Sindicato de Pasajeros Austin Texas

Media contact: For Imiedate release
Mac McKaskle
Macchire@yahoo.com
512-767-5910

Transit riders to assemble to demand a user-based transit system in Austin

 AUSTIN, Texas (August 23, 2010) - The Bus Riders Union-Austin Texas will host a stockholders meeting to develop plans to restructure the antiquated and unproductive bus and rail services that currently constitute Austin's public transit system.  As Austin has become a major urban area, it still retains a transit system based on small-town schedules and old Jim Crow-era routes. On September 18, at University Baptist Church, the Bus Riders Union of Austin will host a general assembly of the stockholders in Austin’s transit system to learn how tax-paying citizen-owners of the system can produce a transit system that gets people from where they are to where they want to be, when they want to be there.
In Austin , the system owners are often the last people who seem to matter in the running of transit, resulting in an inadequate system that results in a defeatist attitude that produces a “we have no choice” mind-set among Austinites needing a modern system that reflects the uniqueness of our city. The first Austin Public Transit Stockholders meeting will address these issues in transit in a five-hour open forum on September 18.  Sessions discussing how the transit system works, how it is affected by governmental policy, the nuisance tax of fares, how to organize power to win, and the system-wide way to improve service routing and scheduling, will be lead by community organizer Mac McKaskle, transit expert Richard Brooks, transit worker Glenn Gaven, and others. These sessions will be followed by a general assembly with speakers scheduled to include community leaders Richard Troxil, Steven Bayers, Stephanie Thomas and Bob Kafka.

UK RMT - Rail fares rip-off and a threat to thousands of safety-critical jobs – transport under attack 100 days in to ConDem government

http://www.rmt.org.uk/Templates/Internal.asp?NodeID=138082

Rail fares rip-off and a threat to thousands of safety-critical jobs – transport under attack 100 days in to ConDem government

Publication Date: August 17 2010

As the ConDem Government marks its first 100 days in office this week transport union RMT warned that jobs, quality and safety have been lined up for an all-out assault this autumn with the travelling public expected to take a massive hit on fares to use battered and under-resourced services.

RMT is pointing to:
Rail and tube fares jacked up to the hilt to protect the profits of private companies and to finance the mess left behind following the failed PPP experiment on London Underground.
Rolling stock replacements, upgrades and renewals work all scrapped or delayed leaving passengers to pay through the nose to travel in overcrowded carriages on under-maintained track.
Thousands of transport jobs under threat on rail, the buses, the tube, the ports and at sea compromising safe working standards and condemning key workers to the threat of the dole.

UK RMT Furious About TUC Invite To Union Buster David Cameron "the idea that we should sit there and take a lecture on fiscal fascism from David Cameron is madness"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jul/08/tuc-unions-pressure-david-cameron-speech
TUC faces union pressure to withdraw David Cameron speech invitation
The TUC has faced calls from unions who have reacted with 'horror' at the prospect of David Cameron addressing its annual conference

Hélène Mulholland
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 8 July 2010 15.46 BST

RMT general secretary Bob Crow is among those who say they would snub David Cameron addressing the TUC conference with a 'lecture on fiscal fascism' and amid severe public sector cuts. Photograph: Steve Parsons/PA
The TUC is facing calls to withdraw an invitation to David Cameron to become the first Conservative prime minister to address its annual congress.

The Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) union said members had reacted with "horror" to the prospect of Cameron addressing delegates at their annual gathering in light of the scale of public sector cutsplanned by the coalition government.

Cameron has yet to respond to the invite sent out by the TUC – the umbrella body for 58 trade unions – but RMT general secretary Bob Crow warned he would lead a walkout of delegates from the conference to snub the prime minister if turned up at the annual conference in Manchester in September.

SF Muni "reform" petition goes to City Hall-Anti-Labor Measure Allows More Part Time Workers, Attacks Union Rights

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/02/BAVR1E7QS9.DTL
Muni reform petition goes to City Hall

Rachel Gordon, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, July 2, 2010

Fare increases, two rounds of service cuts and a defiant operators' union apparently were enough to ignite public outrage and drive a campaign to get a Muni reform measure on San Francisco's November ballot.

Backers of the proposal to target the pay and work rules for Muni operators submitted 74,884 signatures at City Hall Thursday - nearly double the number needed to qualify.

"This shows that people are extremely frustrated with Muni and they want change," said Supervisor Sean Elsbernd, who led the petition drive. "This is about putting Muni riders first and, I predict, will win overwhelmingly."

City elections officials have 30 days to verify that at least 44,382 of the signatures are from registered city voters.

Elsbernd's initiative campaign, financed largely by business interests in the city, has taken on the powerful Transport Workers Union Local 250A, which represents roughly 2,200 bus, streetcar and cable car operators.

Mobility Is a Human Right « Puget Sound ATU Local 758 Transit Operator Speaks Out
http://pstransitoperators.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/mobility-is-a-human-right/

« ATU 758 Speaks Out on Wage Concessions, Media Reports
Mobility Is a Human Right
Published June 21, 2010 Opinion Leave a Comment
Fare hikes, layoffs, and service cuts decimate public transit
by Linda Averill
Also appearing in the Freedom Socialist newspaper, Vol. 31, No. 3, June-September 2010

In 2008, when gas prices spiked, so did transit ridership, reaching 10.7 billion trips nationally. Hard times make this service even more essential to millions of people. So the U.S. government is expanding public transportation, right?

Wrong. Across the U.S., 80 percent of transit agencies are cutting service, hiking fares, or both. Moreover, cuts are hitting hardest the people with the least access to other ways of getting around.

New York City’s transit system, the largest in the country, transports half the local populace every day. Faced with a $400 million shortfall, officials are raising fares, eliminating two subway routes and 34 bus lines, and cutting night-owl service, a lifeline to swing-shift workers. Students are losing free fares.

Privatize Public Transit? The Lessons In Chicago
http://www.chicagoreader.com/gyrobase/chicago-privatization-public-transportation-cta-el/Content?oid=1955350&showFullText=true
June 10, 2010NEWS & COMMENTARY » POLITICS

Privatize Public Transit?
Chicago's tried it before. Here's how that went.
By Robert Loerzel

RICK FROBERG

In December 1898, some Chicagoans began wearing twine—twisted into the shape of a hangman's noose—in their buttonholes. It was their way of sending a message to the City Council about an upcoming vote. "I will not be surprised to see some hanging done in the streets of Chicago," said Mayor Carter H. Harrison II, sizing up the city's mood.

For years, citizens had been complaining about shoddy service on Chicago's privately owned streetcars. They'd fumed at corrupt businessmen who got rich by cramming passengers onto those streetcars. Now aldermen were talking about giving even more power to the street railways—Chicago's "traction companies," in the idiom of the day. If this vote went through, those companies would control the streetcars for another 50 years.

"The city seethed with excitement," Lloyd Wendt and Herman Kogan wrote in their 1943 book, Lords of the Levee. "Aldermen received letters threatening the kidnapping of their children and wives and the dynamiting of their homes."

Anti-Privatization Strike halts Greek rail services
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/da60b740-74a4-11df-aed7-00144feabdc0.html
Strike halts Greek rail services
By by Kerin Hope in Athens
Published: June 10 2010 23:32 | Last updated: June 10 2010 23:32
A 24-hour strike by Greek rail workers on Thursday closed train services round the country, including a link from the centre of the capital to Athens international airport.

Workers at OSE, the lossmaking state-controlled railway organisation, staged the walk-out to protest against the government’s plan to sell 49 per cent of TrainOSE, the network operator, to a strategic investor who would also take over management.

Cross-border services to Serbia, Bulgaria and Turkey were cancelled because of the strike.

The rail privatisation would launch a three-year programme of disposals agreed under the terms of Greece’s €110bn bail-out by the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund.

The government is under pressure from the European Union and IMF to restructure OSE as quickly as possible.

The group’s accumulated debts reached €9.5bn last year, accounting for more than 40 per cent of all debt owed by Greek state entities.

UK BA union UNITE threatens 20-day strike over firing of senior shop steward in union busting move
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/may/06/ba-20-day-strike
BA union threatens 20-day strike
• Airline angers Unite by sacking senior shop steward
• Cabin crew expected to vote against latest peace offer

Dan Milmo, transport correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 6 May 2010 17.59 BST

BA planes could be grounded again. Photograph: Lindsey Parnaby/EPA

British Airways cabin crew could stage a 20-day strike this month as BA inflamed the airline's worst-ever industrial dispute today by sacking a senior shop steward.

The Unite trade union is considering four waves of five-day strikes amid the possibility that flight attendants will vote against the latest BA peace offer. It is understood that the poll of 11,000 flight attendants is heading towards a strong rejection and a result is expected tomorrow, with strike dates awaiting the approval of Unite's joint general secretaries, Tony Woodley and Derek Simpson. They could announce walkouts next Monday.

The relationship between BA and Unite has reached a new low after the airline sacked one of its most senior union officials, a long-standing member of the airline's cabin crew. Duncan Holley, 54, was fired after failing to report for duty while carrying out union work as the secretary for Bassa, Unite's main cabin crew branch.

End to long JR dispute inspires mixed feelings-"Murky Political Settlement"?
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T100410002432.htm

End to long JR dispute inspires mixed feelings "Murky Political Settlement"?
The Yomiuri Shimbun

Former national railway workers have mixed feelings about Friday's settlement of a 23-year-old dispute over Japan Railway companies' refusal to hire them when Japanese National Railways was privatized in 1987.

"Sixty of our coworkers have passed away. I deeply regret I can't share the joy of the resolution with them, but we can embark on a new chapter in our lives," Shinji Takahashi, chairman of the National Railway Workers Union (Kokuro), said Friday during a press conference at the union's headquarters in Shimbashi, Tokyo.

Takahashi also said Kokuro would seek to reach an agreement with the JR companies over the issue of reemployment, through labor-management talks.

"I want each JR firm to hire [union members] from a humanitarian point of view," he said.

After JNR was privatized in 1987, JR companies did not hire a total of 1,047 JNR workers. Because 966 of them were Kokuro members, the union said they had been discriminated against. An executive of East Japan Railway Co. said he felt strange about the government's proposal to pay an average settlement of 22 million yen per person. Now in his 50s, he remembers when about 70,000 workers left the railway industry at the time of the privatization.